


Sniper's Furry Curse

by Beautiful_Doom



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Curses, Kidnapping, M/M, Werewolf, later cutesy puppy stuff, teamkilling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 22:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 45,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beautiful_Doom/pseuds/Beautiful_Doom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After unintentionally insulting Demoman's mother, Sniper finds himself cursed with a furry problem. Better than it sounds. SniperXScout pairing later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Curse of the Beast

"So ye think that me mother's a fake, boyo?"

Sniper rolled his eyes as he sipped his coffee. Demoman sat across from him and was glaring at him as well as he could with his one eye. He was gripping some old pagan looking book in his hands and rage radiated from his very soul.

"I didn't say that, mate," he said. "I just said that it's all a bit of shonky business, is all. Really, magic? How old are you again?"

Demoman leapt up and kicked his chair aside in anger.

"I'll have ye know tha' me mother is th' best at her art. Th' very same art runs through me veins, an' I'm no' afraid ta be using it on ye!" Demoman waved the book in a threatening manner, but Sniper just yawned.

"Sure thing, mate. Do ya need ta go get your wand too?" He stifled a chuckle and took another sip of coffee. He should have been paying attention to Demoman.

If he had… he would have seen Demoman raise that chair at him.

Sniper woke up with a throbbing headache. He opened his eyes and looked around with blurred vision. He tried to put a hand to his head, but soon realized that his hands were bound. Immediately, he started to struggle, but the ropes were too thick and the knots were too tight. His wrists and ankles were tied to the chair he was sitting in. He looked around and saw that he was outside, far away from the base, from the looks of it. The only light was from a fire, and the last man he wanted to see was sneering at him.

"Ya gonna wish ye nevah said all tha' shite ya said. I'm gonna show ya wha' 'appens when ye say tha' magic is fake." He opened the book and idly began to look through it.

"Bloody wankah!" Sniper shouted, struggling again. "You're really gonna do this? When I get outta this, you're gonna wish ya nevah got that book in the first place!" Demo ignored him as he gave a wicked grin.

"Oh, this one. Ya know, boyo, th' other lads all say tha' ya like some kinda animal. They see ya stalk across th' field like some beast. And then ya go back to ya den when it's all over. Well, if ya wanna be a beast so badly…" He pointed at Sniper's feet. Sniper looked down and saw that he was sitting in the middle of some kind of pagan rune.

"Tha' rune will channel any spell into ya tha' I cast. Let's see if ya still think me mother's a fake after this."

He began to read from the book in a language that Sniper didn't understand. Sniper stopped struggling and settled down to endure this, as he called it, very stupid affair. He rolled his eyes as Demo seemed to really get into it and began waving his arms.

"Ya look like a right bloody fool!" Sniper shouted. "Just come untie me, and I'll go easy on ya! I'll even give ya a head start! Just come untie…these…ugh…"

Heat.

Sniper was suddenly burning up with what felt like a bad fever. He began to shake and pant as the heat only got worse and worse until he was nearly gasping for breath. Demo saw what was happening and quickly finished the curse. He laughed wickedly as Sniper groaned in pain.

"Tha's it, boyo," he said, watching the rune beneath Sniper begin to glow. "Tha's th' curse. Now let's see how ya like it." He grinned as Sniper began to writhe.

"D-Demo," Sniper gasped. "St-sto-ARGH!" There was something inside Sniper. He could feel a great pressure, a great rush of energy fighting to get out of him. He wished Demo would just kill him and send him to respawn. Respawn sickness was better than this inferno. He felt as if he would melt or explode, depending on if the pressure or heat claimed him. He felt the ropes began to tighten and wondered if this was part of the curse. Sniper had no doubt now that SOMETHING other worldly was going on. Either that, or Demo had drugged him with a hallucinogen from the Medic. He couldn't think straight, his thoughts and memories all blurring and fading from his mind.

The pressure and heat were growing, and the ropes were tightening until he thought his hands and feet would pop off. Sniper looked down to see that the ropes weren't tightening; his arms and legs were simply growing. His eyes widened as he saw his muscles bulge under his clothes. Raw power was flowing into him from somewhere, and it was only feeding the agony he felt. His insides were writhing within him, giving him intense nausea. He saw his nails start to lengthen, and a clench of his jaw told him that his teeth were changing too.

"Wha- what the bloody…ARRRRGGGGHHHH!" Sniper let loose an inhuman roar as his pain tripled. The ropes burst off of him, and he fell forward hard on his hands and knees, his glasses and hat falling away.

Demo was frozen in awe and fear as he watched Sniper transform. He had failed to read that particular spell all the way through, so he had no idea just what kind of beast Sniper was falling prey to. Sniper continued to cry out and pant in agony as he grew and twisted. His clothes tore at the seams to make room for his new muscles and his bones audibly cracked and twisted around to form a new skeleton. His shreds of clothes fell away to reveal a dark fur that was growing and covering Sniper head to toe to… tail? His tail curled down on the ground and swept up the sand. Sniper's face lengthened into a muzzle, his voice deepening until it was nothing more than a growl. His transformation complete, he threw his head back and howled.

Demo finally realized that he was in deep trouble. He had single handedly transformed Sniper into a wolf that was large enough to stand on his hinds and look Heavy in the eyes. He gulped and slowly began to back away, freezing up when his foot loudly broke a stick. Sniper looked over at Demo, a flash of recognition in his eyes. Demo sighed in relief when he realized that Sniper still had his mind and remembered him. He smiled and opened his mouth to say something when Sniper growled ferociously.

Sniper didn't remember Demo… he just remembered that he was angry at him. Demo almost started to cry when he realized that he now had a very angry, very large, and very deadly wolf in front of him. He saw Sniper tense in preparation and quickly started running as fast as he could back to base. He looked back just in time to see Sniper lunge.


	2. What Happened Last Night?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper wakes up, but can'r remember the previous night.

Pain.

That's the first thing Sniper felt as he slowly opened his eyes. The sun was up, but he was in a great shadow. Thank God for small mercies as his head was throbbing. He groaned and rolled over to his side, hand hitting something rubber and hard. He opened his eyes wider to see a tire. He looked up and discovered that he was lying on the ground in the shadow of his camper.

Sniper slowly managed to stand before the world around him spun and he leaned against his camper. The cool metal felt nice against his bare skin.

Wait…bare?!

Sure enough when Sniper looked down he noticed that he didn't have a stitch of clothing on his body. He yelped and dashed into his camper, slamming the door behind him. Sitting heavily on the bed, Sniper ran a hand through his hair. What happened last night? He strove to remember, but everything beyond Demo casting that "curse" on him was a blur. He remembered the pain and the heat, but that was it. Had it really worked? Was he really cursed now?

Nah…

Sniper chuckled to himself as he shook his head. Demo must have put something in his coffee or even drugged him when he had been knocked out. Yeah, that was it. Sniper quickly dressed, but was unable to find his hat or glasses. He began searching his van, but stopped when a wave of nausea hit him hard. His stomach was hurting something fierce. He decided to look for his things later. Right now, he had to go see Medic about his stomach.

The halls were blissfully empty in the base, although Sniper had heard the general drone of conversation coming from the mess hall. He had obviously woken up just in time for breakfast, but even the thought of food made his stomach twist. Sniper smiled in relief as he saw the infirmary door, and he opened it with a bit of difficulty owing to his sore body. Medic was feeding his doves, but looked over as Sniper came in.

"Herr Sniper," Medic said, "guten Morgen. How are- mein Gott, you look horrible." He dumped his handful of birdseed into the bowl for his doves then made his way over to look at Sniper.

"I feel terrible, Doc," Sniper groaned out. "It's my stomach. It feels like I ate something that don't agree with me." He collapsed into the chair that sat in front of Medic's desk. Medic sighed and went to the medicine cabinets in the back.

"Are you hung over, Herr Sniper?" He asked as he dug around. "I saw you and Herr Demo out late last night. You vere out in ze desert viz a fire going. Some kind of ritual?" He came back to Sniper with a glass of water and a few pills. Sniper shrugged.

"I honestly don't remember what happened last night," he said with another groan. "I know there weren't no drinking, though." He swallowed the pills and drained the glass, the cool water soothing his throat.

"You sound hoarse as vell," Medic mused. "If you vere not drinking, zen vhat vere you doing out zere?" he felt around Sniper's neck and then quickly took a look at his throat.

"I dunno," Sniper said. "I insulted Demo's mum so he took me outside and then tied me to a chair. That's all I really remember."

"Vas? How did you insult his mutter?"

"He was reading some kind of spell book that his mum sent him. I said it was all rubbish and he got angry at me."

"So he knocked you out, tied you to a chair, and zen…vhat?" Medic folded his arms, annoyed at how grown men could act like children.

"He uh, well… he said that he cast a curse on me. Some kinda 'Curse of the Beast,'" Sniper explained. Medic rolled his eyes.

"Such scheiße," he muttered. "Perhaps all zat drinking has killed too many of his brain cells. Curse of ze Beast. So vhat happened afterward?" Sniper opened his mouth to answer when the door to the infirmary burst open to reveal Scout.

"Doc!" Scout shouted. "Snipes is dead! Somethin' got him out in tha desert!" He sudeenly froze as he saw Sniper. "Snipes! You're alive! Ah, thank God, man. I thought ya was dead! I thought we was gonna hafta fight without a Snipah!" Medic chuckled to himself.

"You know zat ve vould just replace him-"

"Hold on ya mongrel," said Sniper. "Why did ya think that I had carked it?" Scout opened his bag and pulled out two items: Sniper's glasses and hat.

"I found these while I was out joggin'," he explained. "There was a lotta blood out there next to 'em, and your clothes was out there too all shredded up. I thought a wolf had got ya or somethin'."

"Zere vas blut out zere?" Medic asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it was all mixed in with tha sand. And then there was some kinda broken chair and picture in the sand." Medic slowly turned to look at Sniper. Sniper had gone pale and the nausea kicked up again.

"Vhy did you zink zat a volf of all creatures attacked Herr Sniper?" Medic asked, looking back at Scout.

"Cuz Engie said that he saw one last night. Said he heard it howling and went to look. It was out sniffing around Snipah's camper. Thing was huge too! Engie said it was almost unreal!" Scout said, unaware of what was going on with Sniper.

Sniper had turned away from them both, the nausea almost unbearable. He put a hand to his stomach and tried to keep from dry heaving, or worse vomiting. It couldn't be real, could it? That curse… it wasn't real. Demo was just messing around, wasn't he?

But then how did that explain what Scout was talking about?

"You ain't seen Demo have ya?" Snipe managed to ask.

"Nah man," said Scout. "No one's seen him. He ain't in his room, the kitchen, the mess hall, the rec room, nowhere. No one's seen him since last night." Medic's eyes narrowed and he glance back over at Sniper.

"Vell," He said cheerfully, "I am sure zat Herr Demo is simply passed out somevere. Perhaps you could go look for him, ja? I need just a few more minutes viz Herr Sniper." Scout shrugged.

"If that guy wants ta sleep in his own puke, then I'm lettin' him. I just wanna go eat. See ya guys around." He made it to the door before he paused. "Oh, and I also found this out there. Well, I found what was left of it." He pulled what looked like a handful of torn pages out of his bag and set them on a gurney before leaving. Medic picked them up and looked through them. They were covered in runes.

Sniper let out the panicked breath that he had been holding and put his face into his hands.

"So Herr Sniper," Medic began, making his way over to sit behind his desk. "Vhat do you have to say for yourself?" Sniper only groaned lowly and said nothing.

"Did you zink zat it vould be funny to play a joke on me? You even got Scout and Demo to help you, I am impressed. (Sniper began to quietly gag) But you of all people should know zat I do not enjoy being ze butt of e joke. (Sniper tried to take deep breaths to alleviate the nausea) So I vould very much like it if you vould just get out (Sniper could feel it coming) of mein-"

"BLEARRRGGGHHH!"

Sniper panted and coughed as he emptied his stomach all over the Medic's desk. Medic jumped up when the viscera ran over the sides and dripped onto the floor. He was about to curse at Sniper for daring to vomit on his desk when he saw just what had been in Sniper's stomach. There was undigested meat, bits of bone, lots of blood, and what looked to be part of an intestine. Medic's brows furrowed in confusion, but Sniper vomited again and coughed a very familiar piece of cloth. With wide eyes, Medic grabbed a pair of forceps and picked the cloth up.

It was an eye patch.

Sniper continued to cough and pant even as he looked up and saw the eye patch.

"Herr Sniper," Medic said slowly. "Is zis still part of ze joke-"

"Ain't no joke, Doc," Sniper said, spitting a bit. "This is all real. Last night…that was real too. Ain't no ther way about it."

"Don't tell me zat you truly believe-"

"Then how did that get in my stomach? How did all of this get in my stomach? You gotta help me, Doc," Sniper gasped out, sitting back in the chair. Medic was too distracted by the eye patch to realize that his desk was being ruined by the vomit. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

"Let's zink zis through, ja?" He said. "Last night you allegedly changed into a volf. Last night vas ze beginning of ze full moon. Ze full moon lasts for drei days. So if you are truly cursed zen you vill change again tonight. If you change again, I vill try to help you find a cure for zis, but you vill not question me, and you vill submit to all my experiments on you." Sniper nodded weakly. "If you do not change, zen zis vill merely show zat ze var has robbed you of your sanity, changed you into a deeply disturbed individual, and made you eat your comrade. If zat is ze case, zen I vill hold no qualms in marching you outside of ze respawn barrier and putting a bullet in your head. Zu verstehen?"

Sniper just nodded again.

"Gut. Now go find something to do vhile I clean this mess up. You vill meet me here again tonight half an hour before ze sun sets."

"Got it,Doc," said Sniper. He dragged himself out of the infirmary on weak and shaky legs. His mind was in a whirl about what he had discovered. If it was true and he was cursed, then he could only hope that no one else would fall prey to the wolf.

That was his last thought as shock and exhaustion claimed him and he passed out.


	3. His Fur is So Soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skepticism gives way to belief.

"Wake up, boyo!"

Sniper jolted awake something smacked him across the face. He looked up to see Demoman standing over him.

"Wha?" He said. "You're still alive?" Demo stood back and laughed.

"Takes more than a trip through a beasties's disgestion ta get rid of me. Did ya forget about respawn?"

"Well, sorry if I don't exactly remember what happened last night," Sniper said with a glare. He climbed to his feet. "And you are the last person I wanna see right now."

"Ok, so I may have bungled things up a bit-"

A bit? A bit?!"

"-but I think I may have a solution to ya problem." Demo suddenly found himself pinned against the wall by an angry Sniper.

"Now you listen to me," Sniper growled. "Ya better tell me just what ya did to me."

Demo sighed.

"I talked ta me mother about it this morning. Tha's where I was gone to. It's a curse tha' causes ya ta change inta a wolf every full moon."

"What, like a werewolf?"

"No' exactly. Ya can' spread it with a bite, and ya can' be hurt by silver. Ya just change every full moon," Demo explained. Sniper let Demo go and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. He should be mad. He should be beating the crap out of Demo for what he did. But he was just so tired, and right now, Demo was the only one who could help him.

"Is there a way to cure me?" He asked. Demo nodded.

"There's a counter curse, bu' ye destroyed the book last night. Me mother's gonna send one here as soon as she can find another copy."

"So I'm basically screwed til it gets here," Sniper bit out.

"Fraid so, laddy. Bu' it really was your faul' for wha' ye said-" Demo didn't get much further when Sniper swung at him, catching him right in the face.

"Don't ya go blaming this on me, ya bloody bogan!" Sniper snarled. No, he literally snarled. He drew back with a look of worry on his face. "Did I just-"

"Ye migh' wanna keep tha' temper in check," Demo said as he rubbed the spot where he was hit. "Don' wan' ye goin' feral on us." He grinned as Sniper turned and walked away as quickly as he could.

~O~

Sniper had confined himself to his van after that. He couldn't decide if he was scared or angry at what had happened. On the one hand, he had eaten Demo as a wolf, so who was to say he wouldn't do it again to another team member? And what if they found out. He knew the team was a sensible team and would require proof, but he couldn't control himself as a wolf, and all it took was for the right man to see him change and then he would be more than likely taken out of respawn and done away with.

On the other hand, he wanted nothing more than to go back and rip Demo to shreds for what he had done. He wanted to kill him again and again and again for putting him in this situation. Oh, but where was that coming from? He'd been angry before, but never had he wanted to kill a team mate so badly. He thought about it and wondered if maybe the rage was coming from… somewhere else.

He was torn from his thoughts when there was a knock on his camper door.

"Who is it?" he called. If it was Demo, he was gonna-

"It's me," oh, it was Scout. Sniper debated on letting him in before sighing and opening the door. Scout was bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet and seemed anxious.

"What do ya want, mongrel?" Sniper asked. Scout shrugged.

"Just seein' if you was ok," he said. "If ya can't fight, then who will watch my back when I'm cappin' a point?" Sniper's brows drew together in confusion.

"Are ya saying that you're worried about me?" he asked. Scout flushed slightly and adopted an angry look.

"No! I'm just sayin' that ya better be ok, cuz if ya aren't then Soldier will be yelling at everyone and then I'll hafta show 'em all that I can cap without ya!" he said defensively.

"If you can cap without me, then why does it matter if I'm ok or not?" Sniper hid a smile. He loved riling the kid up.  
"Cuz it's easier with ya helpin' me!" said Scout. "And if I show everyone that I can cap without ya, then ya could get fired cuz we wouldn't need ya!" He crossed his arms.

"That doesn't make any sense," Sniper chuckled. Scout always did have a way of making him feel better whether it was indirectly or not.

"Ah shut up, ya koala humper. I don't even know why I came ta see ya anyway now. You're such a jackass."

"I suppose I am," Sniper murmured. He really wasn't in the mood for company, but he could really use a distraction from what was coming tonight. He stood back and opened his door wider.

"So ya coming in?" He asked. Scout's tense posture softened.

"Huh?" He asked.

"Are ya gonna come in or are ya gonna head back to play with your dolls in your room?"

"Hey!" Scout looked mad again. "I aint comin' there! Ya know how gay that looks?" He said.

Sniper shrugged and shut the door.

Inside, he slowly counted to five.

"I wanna come in," he heard Scout say. With a grin, Sniper opened the door and let Scout in.

~O~

Scout had ended up being a nice enough distraction to the point that it took Scout commenting on the sunset when Sniper suddenly remembered what was going to happen. He shooed Scout off, saying that he had to go see Medic for some medicine, and then made his way to the infirmary.

Medic and Demo were both waiting for him. Demo looked excited while Medic looked as impassive as ever.

"Vell," said Medic, "Let's get zis over viz." He grabbed a medical bag and then led the way out of the infirmary. Sniper tried his best not to panic as he was led down to the holding cells that were usually reserved for captured members of the other team.

"Doc, I really don't like this," he said. Medic looked back at him with something that could almost be called pity.

"Now, now, Herr Sniper. Zis is only a precaution for your… condition. If you really are cursed, zen zis cell vill hold you and keep us all safe. Zese bars vere designed to hold Heavy, and ze valls of zis room are soundproof so don't vorry about a zing."

"Then what's in the bag?" Sniper asked. Medic glanced down at his bag and then smiled up at Sniper.

"A doctor alvays comes prepared," was all he said. He gestured for Sniper to get into the cell, smile still in place. Sniper took a deep breath and then walked into the cell, Demo shutting and locking the heavy door behind him.

"What now?" Sniper asked. Medic looked to Demo for an answer.

"Ye shouldn't start changing til the sun goes down," he said. "So we wait."

"You know," Medic said, setting his bag down and crossing his arms, "I am still not convinced zat zis is some elaborate prank." Demo rolled his eye.

"Ye are so narrowminded. Ye always have been even when I was tellin' ye my stories abou' the Lock Ness Monster-"

"I really could svear zat you said it vas ze 'Loch Ness Hamster.'"

"-or abou' Bigfoot. Ye need ta open ya mind a lil bit. Migh' save ya life one day."

"I doubt zat," Medic said.

Sniper sighed and leaned against the wall. There was one window in the room, however small it was, and it showed a rapidly darkening sky. Sniper felt his anxiety grow, a light sweat starting to break out on his skin. His stomach already felt like it was twisting with nerves, no matter how many deep breaths he took to calm himself.

Medic and Demo continued to argue even as the last of the orange and reds of the sky faded into dark blue. Sniper watched the sky blacken and the moon came out.

"And furzermore," Medic ranted at Demo, poking him in the chest. "I am a man of medicine, so vhy am I down here under ze insane notion zat my team mate vill change into a-"

"Gah! Agh!"

Medic looked over to see Sniper on his hands and knees on the floor of the cell. Sniper panted and grunted in pain.

"It-it's happening," he choked out. "I can feel it." He cried out as another wave of pain tore through him, adding to the intense heat he was already feeling.

Medic watched curiously as Sniper clawed at the floor. He glanced at the Demo, trying to gauge his reaction. Medic looked back at the cell and his expression turned to shock as Sniper seemed to grow right before his eyes. Demo himself looked with an awed expression, having already seen the transformation before but still mesmerized by it. He winced whenever he heard a bone give a particularly painful crack. Medic's eyes remained wide as Sniper slowly became more beast than man, and then finally gave a howl as a large black wolf.

"Holy Mother of God," Demo breathed. "It still looks so…" he broke off as he searched for a word to describe it. He looked over to see Medic rummaging through his bag.

Sniper growled and lunged at the bars, biting at them with his new teeth. He snarled loudly at Medic and Demo.

"Wha' are we gonna-" But Demo was interrupted as Medic fired a slew of syringes into Sniper. Sniper yelped slightly and backed away from the cell bars. His eyes began to grow heavy, and his movements grew sluggish until he finally keeled over onto the floor.

"The hell?" Demo shouted as Medic put his gun back. "How could ye jus' kill-"

"Silence you drunken fool!" Medic shouted back, fire blazing in his eyes. Demo backed up in shock. Medic quickly unlocked the cell and ran over to Sniper. He fell to his knees in near reverence as he ran his hands over Sniper's new body.

"Oh, Gott in Himmel," he whispered to himself. He continued to mutter in German. Demo walked up behind him with confusion written on his face.

"Ye ok, Doc?" He asked. Medic rolled his eyes.

"Vould you hush?" he said. "I merely sedated him." Medic pulled Sniper's lips back and examined his teeth. "I vas not expecting zis. I zought zat it vas all just a joke. But now…" he broke off to giggle almost giddily. A crazed look was in his eyes. "I must get some samples." He opened his bag and pulled out several items. He clipped a bundle of fur off of Sniper and stored it in a bag. He drew blood and then packed away the vials. He took skin samples as well, and saliva. He left no stone unturned with his examinations, calling on Demo to help him move the heavy body around so that Medic could examine every inch of the wolf.

"Wha' are ye gonna do?" Demo finally asked as Medic packed away the last of his tools.

"Zis is possibly ze greatest specimen I could ever hope for. I need to run some tests, do some experiments. Zink of ze possibilities, Herr Demo! Imagine if ve veaponized zis. If ve vere able to train zis volf to fight for us. Vhy stop zere? Vhat if ve spread zis to ze ozers? A team of volves fighting against ze BLUs! Ve vould never lose again! Imagine!" Medic laughed like a little boy on Chrsitmas, but Demo looked at him with concern.

"Doc, maybe we should leave him be now."

"You can go," Medic said, waving his hand. "I still want to look at him. And zen I vant to vatch him change back!" He went back to stroking Sniper's fur. Demo left the room with a frown. He was really starting to regret what he had done to Sniper.


	4. I Vill Help you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper and Medic make a deal.

Sniper woke up in his side and feeling something in his hair. Whatever it was moved back in forth in a comforting motion and soothed the headache he had. He blinked his eyes wearily, recalling that he had changed again last night. Since his stomach was feeling fine, he assumed that he hadn't eaten anyone. He still was unable to remember anything as a wolf, though.

Sniper groaned softly and closed his eyes again. That thing in his hair really did feel good. It gently ran through his hair, and as the fog in his mind cleared he heard someone humming. The tune was slow, probably a lullaby, but the voice was so familiar. Sniper cracked his eye open again and looked up to see the smiling face of Medic.

"Guten morgen, Herr Sniper," he said. Sniper then realized three things:

Medic was sitting right next to him.

That thing in stroking his hair was Medic's hand.

He was naked…again.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Sniper rolled away and backed into the wall of the cell. He curled up and glared at Medic who in turn shrugged.

"Vhy so modest? It's not like I haven't seen you naked before," he said.

"That was with me being awake, though!"

"Oh please," Medic scoffed. "I did not molest you. Alzough your fur vas very soft…"

"You're not helping your case any!" Sniper snapped. "Now get me some pants!"

"You have just avoken from being a volf and your main concern is your lack of pants?" Medic chuckled. "I vas not expecting zat. You are a strange man."

Well if that wasn't the pot calling the kettle black…

"And I have news!" Medic said excitedly. "I took some samples from you both last night as a volf and zen zis morning vhen you changed back. Your entire physiology has changed! Your blood is different, your skin is different, even your hair is different! Actually, in zis light it looks darker. Anyvay, I vould like to run some tests and perform a few experiments vhen you change next."

"I'm not some science experiment, Doc," Sniper grumbled. " I'm just a bloke who got cursed."

"Ja, ja, ja," Medic said dismissively, "but don't forget zat you came to me for help. I must learn if I hope to cure."

"Don't need your help with that anymore, Doc. Demo said his mum is gonna send a book with the counter curse in it."

"And vhat until zen?" Medic asked, folding his arms. "How vill you keep zis beast from killing again? How do you hope to control it? Do you know vhat vill happen if you are found out?" His tone was stern, and Sniper flinched.

"I'll probably be taken from respawn and then executed," Sniper sighed. He really didn't want to think about it. To his surprise, Medic let out a loud laugh.

"Zat is if you are lucky," he said, "and if you are discovered by your own team. Vhat if BLU finds out? You vill be dragged to zeir base and thrown into a cell vorse zan zis. Zey vill vant to turn you into a veapon to use against us. And ze BLU Medic! Oh, if you zink zat I am bad you have not met ze BLU Medic. I may perform some surgeries, but he vill turn you inside out, disembowel you, and zen staple you back togezer wrong!" He broke off to mutter in German

Sniper listened until a wave of dizziness struck him like a train. He gripped the sides of his head and shut his eyes as he felt the world spin around him. He groaned softly and felt Medic help him to his feet. Sniper opened his eyes in time to see Medic tie his coat around his waist.

"Huh?" Sniper blinked. Medic shrugged.

"I have no pants for you so zis vill have to do. Don't vorry, I have had vorse zings touch my coats. I vill just have to make sure to vash zis twice." He slung Sniper's arm around his shoulder and helped him walk back to the infirmary. Well, he tried to anyway since he soon found his path blocked by Scout.

"Snipes?" Scout looked between Medic and Sniper.

"I'm afraid zat Herr Sniper is feeling ill again," said Medic. "I am on ze vay to give him something to help him feel better." Scout's eyes narrowed in suspicion and he folded his arms.

"Then why is he naked with ya coat tied around him?" He asked. Oh, what was that tone in his voice?

"He vomited all over himself and I had to take him to get cleaned up," Medic explained smoothly. "In my haste I forgot to get clothes or a towel." There was a growl in his voice that clearly told Scout to drop it.

Scout scoffed and his face twisted into a scowl.

"He don't look wet- ya know what? Forget it. Just make sure yous two are ready for the fight later." He stomped off, but Sniper could hear him utter "stupid fags" under his breath.

"Kinder," Medic sighed. They made it back to the infirmary with no other interruptions.

"Do you zink zat you can fight today?" Medic asked as Sniper sat in the chair in front of Medic's desk (which had been restored to its state of cleanliness after some hard scrubbing).

"Yeah," Sniper nodded. "I'm not lettin' this affect my work. Besides, if I stay put here it'll just call attention from the Administrator.

"Ah yes," Medic said, propping his head up on his hand, "I had forgotten about her."

"Don't suppose she'll be happy if she finds out about this," Sniper crossed his arms.

"Oh, I don't know about zat," Medic mused. "She probably von't care as long as it doesn't affect your performance."

"Ya dunno that for sure," Sniper sighed. He rubbed his eyes wearily.

"At least you don't move around much in battle," Medic said. "I'm sure zat you vill be fine."

"I will be. Just get me some coffee and I'll be ready to go. At least I only have to do this one more time before I get a month to relax."

"True," Medic sounded disappointed at that. "Zat is true. Oh, and about my tests. I vas vondering if you vould allow me to record your transformations-"

"No."

Medic broke off at Sniper's abrupt answer. Sniper was looking at him with a dead expression.

"But it vould-"

"No."

"And it vould help-"

"No."

"And I could really-"

"No."

"Vell vhy not?" Medic asked irritably. Sniper sighed again.

"It's bad enough without being turned into a spectacle, Doc. I'll let you test if ya can find a way to help me control it, but that's it. Besides, ya may become tempted to do something more with all this." He gave a Medic a meaningful look.

"I have no idea vhat you are talking about," Medic said, looking away. Sniper snarled (literally snarled) and grabbed Medic by the front of his shirt. Medic yelped as he was pulled up.

"Don't bullshit me, Doc!" Sniper spat. "Ya said the BLU Medic would turn me into a weapon, but don't say that ya haven't thought of it either! I'll fight for this team as a man, but I will not fight as a wolf. If that's what ya want, then ya can go into town and get yaself a dog!" He lifted Medic off of his feet and growled, his grip tightening Medic's tie.

"Herr Sniper, let me go," Medic gasped through the restricting fabric on his neck. "Please. Lass mich gehen"

Sniper blinked and came back to his senses. He gasped and set Medic down, collapsing back into his chair. Medic loosened his tie as Sniper covered his face with his hands, breathing deep in an attempt to calm down.

"Vell," Medic coughed, "zat is new. It must be a side effect."

"I'm so sorry," came Sniper's muffled voice. Medic gave a dismissive wave.

"Do not vorry about it. I have dealt viz vorse. I vill admit zat ze notion of veaponizing ze volf has crossed my mind, but I vill let it be. I am not so sadistic as ze BLU Medic, and you are right in zat I should not make zis any bigger zan it is." Sniper moved his hands to look Medic in the eye. "But do not zink zat I vill not still be testing you. Zis is a once in a blue moon opportunity…or in zis case a once every full moon opportunity." He gave a chuckle at his joke.

"Thanks, Doc." Sniper breathed a sigh of relief. "I need to go get dressed now. Do you have anything I could wear back to my van?"

"Only zis," Medic stood and retrieved a patient gown from the closet. Sniper shrugged.

"Better than ya coat," he said. He removed the coat and pulled the gown on.

"See ya, Doc," he turned to leave.

"Herr Sniper," Medic called. Sniper turned back at the door. "I vill try my hardest to help you, but I cannot promise anyzing. You vill have to forgive me if ze tests I need to do turn out to be… unpleasant."

Sniper nodded.

"Do what ya need to do, Doc." And then he left to get ready for the day.


	5. Listen to Your Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper is hearing a strange voice.

There was definitely something odd going on with that RED Sniper.

The BLU Spy strode angrily from respawn for the fifth time, and lit a cigarette. He had been sent there by the RED Sniper yet again, and what was worse was that Spy hadn't been able to so much as touch him. He took a moment to rack his brain for what could possibly be giving the Sniper such an advantage, but came up with nothing.

The RED Sniper had been executing killing blows with his kukri in a fashion that almost made Spy jealous. It was also in a fashion that was very much unlike the Sniper. He would sit hunched over on his crate and staring through the scope of his gun like he always did. Spy would slip through the trapdoor of the tower and slowly make his way over, but at the last possible second the Sniper would rear back with his blade and send Spy to respawn.

Spy growled low in his throat as he puffed on his cigarette. It was almost as if something was guiding the Sniper, for his killing blow seemed to change no matter how Spy tried to adapt. It was quickly pissing Spy off and he made it his personal vendetta to kill that Sniper at least once by the end of the fight.

He cloaked and once again made his way to the sniping tower, carful to mask his footsteps and remembering to toss away his cigarette. He slowly and carefully made his way up the ladder, he slowly and carefully opened the trap door, and he slowly and carefully slid into the tower.

Sniper was there in the same spot as last time; his bloody kukri was leaning against the wall next to him. Hmm… if Spy could knock that kukri away he may just have a chance. He had tried before, but wasn't able to. He crept up behind the Sniper even as he got a headshot and took a second to reload.

That was when Spy struck.

As Sniper reloaded, Spy kicked the kukri away and, using the strap of the rifle, brought Sniper into a head lock with his knife against his throat. Sniper struggled, but Spy twisted him off the crate. He raised his balisong and prepared to strike.

That was when the Sniper did something wholly unpredictable.

~O~

The BLU Engineer was tending his dispenser when the BLU Spy suddenly stumbled up to him. Engineer saw that Spy was gripping his left arm and trying to stem the flow of blood that was pouring from it.

"Damn, Spy." He said in shock. "What in the Sam Hill happened to you?" Spy leaned against the dispenser and sighed in relief as the healing vapors soothed his arm.

"It was zat RED Sniper!" He said. "'E bit me!"

"Bit you?" Engineer repeated. He looked down at Spy's arm and saw that a good chunk was missing. "That don't look like a bite. Least not a human one."

"I always knew zat bushman was nothing more zan a filthy animal!" Spy snapped, flexing his arm. The skin had healed, but there was still a scar and a nice hole in the sleeve of his suit. "Something must have 'appened. I bet zat medic is turning zem all into animals over zere-"

"Kinda like how our Medic wanted to give you tentacles that one time?" Engineer interrupted. Spy glared at him before cloaking and stomping off, muttering about rabid snipers.

~O~

Sniper was having a very good day. The general crappy feeling had disappeared with some coffee, and he was getting more kills than ever. It had almost worried him how well he was doing. The BLU Spy had tried to kill him several times, but each time Sniper found himself reacting to some new instinct and sending the Spy to respawn. It certainly helped that he had been able to hear and smell the Spy coming each time. He had never been able to do this before and had no doubt that it had something to do with his new affliction. For a moment, Sniper actually enjoyed his new skills.

Later, a stray rocket destroyed his perch, and Sniper executed a very impressive set of acrobatics to jump to safety. He switched to his kukri and ran off to find cover. He managed to find a nice window, and was about to climb up when he heard a familiar yell. His new instinct screamed at him to investigate and he obeyed quickly.

The scene he came in on was not one he wanted to see. Scout lay dead at the feet of the BLU Soldier, blood pouring from the stab wound in his stomach. The triumphant BLU Soldier laughed and beat the bloody shovel against his helmet in a taunting manner. Sniper tensed and growled low. His instinct said one thing to him:

'KILL'

And he was only too happy to obey.

He lunged forward and tackled the BLU Soldier, teeth chomping down on the wrist that held the shovel, causing the BLU Soldier to cry out and drop it. Sniper gleefully felt something crack between his jaws as blood poured into his mouth. The BLU Soldier recovered enough to shove Sniper away and reach for his gun.

BLU Soldier wasn't one to let a small thing like an injured wrist stop him from fighting. Even if said wrist hurt like hell. He cocked his gun and shot at the Sniper, but Sniper managed to dodge. Undeterred, BLU Soldier spun around to follow Sniper and shot again, but Sniper once again dodged. At that moment, his injured wrist decided to say what it thought of two recoils and Soldier found that he could no longer move his hand. His gun dropped tilted towards the ground, but Soldier tried to level it with one hand.

Too bad Sun Tzu never said to not let yourself become distracted when a wolf man was around.

Sniper lunged again, this time aiming for Soldier's jugular. He bit down as hard as he could and wrenched his head from side to side, tearing skin as a jet of blood shout out. Soldier didn't even have time to yell before blood flooded his mouth and dripped down his jaw. He fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut and Sniper gave a growl for good measure.

Sniper wiped his mouth with only a light amount of distress. His instinct said that he had done right even if Sniper felt fear over his animalistic savagery. Well, technically he was a real animal now. As long as he didn't hurt his teammates did it really matter if he fought like this? His thoughts were interrupted when he felt a sharp pain in his head.

'FIND HIM' said his instinct.

"Find who?" Sniper asked aloud, rubbing his temple.

'FIND MATE'

"Mate?" Sniper was confused now. He looked down in time to see the BLU Soldier's body vanish and noticed the other puddle of blood that was missing a body.

"Scout? Find Scout?"

'FIND HIM'

"Find him? Do you know how bloody big the field-" He was interrupted by another flare of pain. He put his hands to his head and grit his teeth.

'FIND MATE'

"Find Scout," Sniper breathed. "Find mate…" There really was no point in arguing right now. His head was throbbing and he didn't want it any worse. He felt a mental nudge to the left and decided that he had no other choice than to follow it.

Sniper ran through the battlefield like a man on fire. Actually, he almost was a man on fire when he ran into the enemy Pyro. The RED Soldier yelled at him as he passed, but he wasn't paying attention and didn't hear what was said. It was probably nothing good, anyway.

Sniper made his way to the respawn in time to see Scout exiting. Scout was fiddling with his scatter gun and didn't notice Sniper until he almost walked right into him. Scout looked up and his face twisted into a surprised expression.

"Sniper?"

"You ok, mongrel?" Sniper asked. His instinct quieted, and he felt as if a weight was taken off of his shoulders. Scout's cheeks reddened slightly, but he scowled and brushed past Sniper.

"Duh I'm fine," he said, "I don't need you-"

But then Sniper grabbed Scout's hand and stopped him. Scout blushed even more as he saw Sniper's worried expression. Sniper rubbed a thumb over Scout's hand, overcome with a feeling he couldn't identify. He almost purred with the satisfaction of holding Scout's hand.

"Just…just be careful, ok?" He said. Scout swallowed whatever snarky comment he was going to say and just nodded. Sniper let go of his hand and Scout scampered off.

Sniper shuffled into the respawn room to switch out his rifle for his huntsman. He sighed happily as he pulled his quiver on. He knew that Scout would be ok. Respawn always picked up without fail, but there was always that lingering fear of glitches in the system. Sniper had been the victim of such a glitch before when the system had accidentally fused him with a nearby snake. Sniper shivered at the memory and ran a hand down the side of his left leg if only to remind him that he had two legs and not a long snake tail.

He shook himself from the memory and focused again on Scout. He had been happy to see Scout ok again. In fact he had been happy to see Scout at all after Scout had been avoiding him. He had been happy to see his friend.

'MATE' whispered his instinct.

Yes, mate…

Mate?

Sniper froze and ran that word through his mind again. What did he mean when he called Scout 'mate'? What did his instinct even mean when it did the same?

'MATE. HE IS MATE'

Yes, but did 'mate' mean? Sniper had always considered Scout to be a friend, so is that what it meant? His head once again flared in pain, making Sniper nearly drop his bow.

'HE IS MATE. MATE IS IMPORTANT. MATE IS HEART.' Sniper groaned and held his head as it throbbed.

Mate is heart? Did that mean that Scout was his mate in a romantic sense? Did Sniper even have feelings for the runner? Sniper thought hard, but couldn't think of anything. He had always seen Scout as a friend, but had never really thought about Scout being more. He sighed.

"He is not my mate," he said softly. "He's just a friend."

'MATE!'

This time Sniper did drop his bow. He gripped his head hard as his instinct continued to yell at him. He groaned and grunted in pain, stumbling over to sit on a bench. He was bent nearly double as his head felt like it would explode.

"He's not my mate!" Sniper said. "He doesn't even feel that way about me."

'MATE! MATE! MATEMATEMATEMATEMATEMATEMATE MATE….'

Sniper shook as the pain increased, that one damned word repeating over and over again. Sniper twisted and writhed, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Shut up!" He cried, but his instinct kept repeating the word. He eyed the gun in his locker, wondering if maybe respawn would shut the voice up. The pain seemed to double, and Sniper fell to the floor. Sniper grit his teeth and snarled. He reared his head back and gripped his hair.

"SHUT UP!" He shouted. "JUST SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP!"

But then Sniper felt a prick on the back of his neck. He gasped and reached for a weapon, but a numbness spread through his body and rendered his limbs useless. He fell forward, but someone caught him. His vision blurred, but he could see the white sleeve that bore a red cross before he lost consciousness.


	6. A Great Puppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BLU Medic is strange and Sniper acts like a puppy.

The BLU Spy puffed on his cigarette with a scowl. They had lost the match, but that wasn’t what bothered the Spy. He had half listened to his team’s grumbling until he overheard the BLU Soldier talk about his encounter with the RED Sniper. Again, Spy found himself suspicious. Why was the RED Sniper suddenly acting like an animal? Biting did not become the Aussie, and tearing out someone’s throat sure as hell didn’t either. Spy tossed his cigarette down and crushed it as he made his choice.

He would simply have to do a little spying on the RED Sniper.

Spy smiled to himself and turned around just in time for someone to plow into him. A hand flew for his knife, but the someone grabbed his wrist and pulled the sleeve back. Spy growled when he saw that it was the BLU Medic.

The Medic examined the scar on Spy’s arm like an artist would a priceless painting.

“Beautiful,” He breathed, blowing his long brown bangs from his face. Spy scowled and wrenched his arm away, pulling the sleeve back down.

“What do you want, Docteur?” He asked. Medic gave a wide grin that Spy was sure little children had nightmares about somewhere.

“I vas told by Herr Engineer zat you had been injured in battle. Zough I am happy vent to his dispenser for healing I must ask vhy you did not seek me out. An injured arm is hardly life threatening.”

Spy rolled his eyes. Of course Medic loved the dispensers that Engineer built. The dispensers could heal, but they could not prevent scars like the medigun could. And the BLU Medic loved scars.

“It was just an animal bite. I was attacked by ze local wildlife,” Spy cooly lied. Medic raised an eyebrow and his smile did not falter.

“An animal bite?” He repeated. “I have never seen an animal bite like zat.” Spy glared.

“Well zen you must not ‘ave seen many,” he snapped. “And I didn’t come to you because I do not trust you.” He brushed past the Medic and continued down the hall.

“Ach,” Medic followed him. “Are you still sore because I tried to give you tentacles? You know, if you vould only put your pride and vanity aside, you vould realize zat tentacles could give you quite ze advantage. “

“Only in ze sewers,” Spy quipped. “And not everyone fights in ze sewers.”

“Zen you vould not have to fight!” Medic said excitedly. “I could have Herr Engineer build a little moat around ze base and you could stay in zere and be our guardian! Imagine! Or I could have him build you a grand tank and you could stay in zere all safe and sound. And I could feed you fish and snails. You like snails, ja? Zey are a delicacy in Fr-“

“Docteur!” Spy spun around and grabbed the Medic to stop him from running into him. “I am not a guardian nor am I some pet. I am a Spy. I belong on ze field.”

Medic frowned and looked down. 

“You could be a great pet,” he mumbled. Spy sighed and rolled his eyes. There was the flutter of wings as a Starling landed on Medic’s head. Medic looked up and a true smile of happiness broke out over his face.

“Ah, Lizzie, mein Liebling,” he said, reaching up to stroke the bird.

“Why is it zat you treat your own team badly, but you treat your birds like royalty?” Spy asked.

“Man is terrible. Animals are precious,” Medic said matter-of-factly.

“Zen why did you not become a veterinarian?”

“Because I have sociopathic tendencies zat need to be addressed and being a doctor is my outlet,” Medic explained. “I vill behead a man in an instant, but I could never harm something as precious as my little Lizzie.” Medic took the bird in his hands and cooed at it affectionately.

“I still cannot believe zat you named zat bird after Lizzie Borden,” Spy shook his head in disgust and walked off. Medic just grinned again and walked off to his office, singing softly under his breath to his bird:

“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mozer forty vhacks…”

~O~

Over at the RED base, Sniper was just waking up in Medic’s infirmary.

“Ah, Herr Sniper,” Medic said with a warm smile. “How are you feeling?”

Sniper rubbed his eyes and looked at Medic in confusion.

“Did ya sedate me?” He asked. Medic nodded solemnly.

“You looked to be in great pain. Vas it respawn sickness?” He asked. Sniper listened closely for his instinct, but nothing came. He didn’t think that telling the Medic that he was hearing voices would be a good thing, so he just nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Respawn sickness. Gave me a bad migraine.” Medic nodded in understanding.

“I know how zat feels,” he said. “And I’m sure zat you vill be pleased to know zat ve von ze match.”

Won the match? How long had Sniper been unconscious?

“What time is it?” He asked. Medic suddenly looked sheepish.

“It’s almost sunset…” he chuckled nervously.

“What?” Sniper growled. “How long were ya gonna keep me under?”

“Vell…” Medic began. “I vas going to just sedate you for a little, but zen I became curious as to vhat vould happen if you vere unconscious vhen it vas time for you to transform. Oh, and you had a visitor!”

“A visitor? Who?”

“Herr Scout came by to see you vhen you vere sleeping. He seems vorried about you, but he certainly had no varm feelings for me,” Medic said, walking over to the side to feed his birds. He filled the little dishes with birdseed, looking up when the door opened and Demoman walked in.

“I found a book that migh’ help us,” he said, holding up a ratty book. Medic smiled as Archimedes perched on his shoulder.

“How many of those books do you have?” Sniper asked, climbing out of the bed. Demo just grinned.

“I have enough, lad,” he said. “Mother still hasn’ found a copy of tha’ book ye’, bu’ this one should help until then. It has a chapter on werewolves.”

Sniper wasn’t paying attention until pain exploded in his head.

‘BAD. KILL.’

Oh, so his instinct remembered Demo as the one who cursed him in the first place. Sniper shook his head slightly and stifled a growl. He could feel a prickly heat in his body and a quick glance out the window showed that he had little time left. Demo followed Sniper’s gaze.

“I think we should ge’ him to tha’ cell now, Doc,” he said.

~O~

“Have you found anything yet?” Medic asked. He stood in front of Sniper’s cell, watching the wolf bite at the bars in an effort to break free. Demo scowled.

“I hafta a read a wee bit slower than ye Doc since I have only one eye,” he snapped. Medic rolled his eyes and watched as Sniper began to reach between the bars with a massive paw and bat at the air in front of Medic. A few inches more and he would be able to touch the doctor.

“Hmmm…” Demo flipped through the chapter, ignoring how Medic was now holding a hand out to bait the wolf only to snatch it away when the wolf swiped at him.

“Aha! It says here tha’ only the mate or the scent of the mate of a wolf can calm it down,” Demo said in triumph. “Now how are we gonna do tha’?”

“Vell, for starters, ve don’t even know who ze volf’s mate is. It could be a man, a woman, or even some ozer animal. So ve are, as Herr Scout vould say, screwed,” Medic said, not pausing in his game with Sniper. Demo frowned and kept reading.

“It says tha’ a wolf’s fur reflects the distance to its mate. The darker the fur, the closer the mate is,” Both he and Medic made note of Sniper’s pitch black fur.

“Zen his mate is close by,” Medic mused. “But ve only have men in zis base. Is it common for volves to engage in homosexuality?”

“I don’ know,” Demo said. “Maybe it’s a reflection off of Sniper.”

“Are you saying zat Herr Sniper is gay?” Medic chuckled. “I vould never in a million years call zat man gay. He does not act it at all.”

“Look, we can argue over this or we can try to find the scent we need,” Demo said, annoyed with the Medic.

“Vell, zat is simple enough to do. A trip to ze laundry room should do it,” Medic mused. He suddenly yelped when Sniper finally managed to snag a corner of Medic’s coat in his claws. Medic quickly jerked away, the corner of his coat ripping off in Sniper’s claws. Medic huffed irritably, but turned away to leave.

“Make sure to keep an eye on him,” he said to Demo, giving a smirk as he passed. Demo caught the joke and flipped Medic off.

Medic came back not long after with an armful of dirty laundry that had quite the smell. Demo’s nose crinkled in disgust, but he noticed how Sniper seemed to calm slightly.

“Look, Doc,” Demo said as Medic dropped the pile on the floor. “He’s calmin’ down.”

“Zen ve are on ze right track,” Medic said with a smile. He disentangled a shirt and noted the emblem on the sleeve. “Zis is Herr Soldier’s shirt.” He held it out to Sniper, but quickly withdrew his arm when Sniper growled at him.

“Obviously not him,” Medic said, grabbing another shirt.

“Herr Engineer.”

Grrrrr...

“Herr Spy?”

Grrrrr…

“Herr Heavy?”

Grrrr….

“Herr Pyro?”

Grrrr….

Medic noted the last shirt and raised an eyebrow. This shirt had no emblem, and the sleeves were still partially rolled up.

“Zis is ze last one…” He held it out to Sniper like the others. Sniper sniffed the shirt and then snatched it from Medic’s hand. He tugged it through the bars of the cell and dropped it on the floor. Demo and Medic’s jaws dropped as they watched Sniper give a happy bark and start rolling on the shirt, wagging his tail and gnawing affectionately on the cloth.

“Well I’ll be Bigfoot’s toenails…”Demo said in shock. “The wee runner is Sniper’s mate. I never would have guessed- what are you doing?” Demo jumped back as Medic unlocked the cell door and peered back at Demo with a grin.

“He is calm now, ja? I have nothing to vorry about.” He opened the door and slowly walked in. Sniper took no notice of him and kept gnawing on Scout’s shirt. Demo didn’t move, afraid that he would set the wolf off, and wished that one of them had brought a weapon. Medic inched his way over to Sniper and held a hand out. He slowly lowered it to pat Sniper’s head. Sniper finally looked up at Medic, the shirt falling from his teeth. Medic held his breath as he stared the wolf down. The wolf, now calmed, could think clearly about his surroundings. He knew this man, didn’t he? He knew his smell. This man helped him. This man was good.

Sniper then leapt up to lick Medic’s face, smearing his glasses with slobber, and then barked happily. Medic wiped his glasses off with a smile.

“So he is calmed vhen he smells Herr Scout,” he said, reaching down to scratch Sniper behind the ears. Sniper’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he eagerly pushed his head into Medic’s hand.

“Ha, he’s acting like a wee pup,” Demo laughed as he approached the bars. Sniper suddenly growled at Demo, teeth bare and ears flat against his head. He snapped at Demo, and Demo quickly jumped back.

“It vould appear zat he doesn’t like you,” Medic said, clearly amused. “I vonder vhy zat could be…” Demo glared as Medic chuckled. Sniper calmed down again and rolled over for Medic to scratch his belly. No one noticed the odd blue puff of smoke at the window.


	7. Rejection

Out of the three times Sniper had woken up after a transformation, this one had to be the worst. Just opening his eyes made him dizzy, he had chills, his whole body ached, and he had trouble breathing. Sniper closed his eyes and pressed his face into his pillow as he felt the world spin around him. He tugged his blanket up higher, shivering as he drew a labored breath. He felt a hand on his head and the bed dipped as someone sat next to him.

"Shhh…." soothed a voice. It was Medic. Sniper opened an eye and saw that Medic was in uniform minus his coat, and he looked very concerned for Sniper. Sniper looked down when the harsh lights hurt his eyes and noticed the scarlet blankets on his bed. He was in the infirmary. He shuddered again when Medic helped him into a sitting position.

"Take zese," Medic said, holding out two white pills. "Zey vill help you recover faster." Sniper obediently took the medicine, and then gulped down the water that Medic handed him.

"You are in bad shape," said Medic, helping Sniper lie down again. "I do not know if it is a supernatural cause, or if zese transformations are putting a horrible strain on your body. At any rate, I vant you to stay in here for a vhile. Your body needs rest."

"No complaints here, Doc," Sniper muttered hoarsely. He sank down into the soft pillows and drew the blankets up again.

"Before you go back to sleep, zough," said Medic, "do you zink zat you could manage some food right now?" Medic's hand went to Sniper's back to gently rub it through the blankets. Sniper gave a small whimper at the comfort, the pain in his limbs burning away at him.

"It hurts me to see you like zis," Medic muttered, helping Sniper to sit up and pulling over a cart that held a tray of surgical tools as well as a bowl of oatmeal.

"I don't wanna eat, Doc," Sniper said, hoping to sink back down into slumber. "I just wanna sleep."

"Herr Sniper, I really must insist zat you eat," Medic said, stirring the oatmeal. Sniper huffed.

"I wanna sl- Aack!" A wave of pain hit his head, and he brought a hand up to rub his temples.

'LISTEN TO ALPHA.' Said his instinct.

"Herr Sniper?" Medic looked down in worry. "Are you all right?"

"Alpha?" Sniper repeated in confusion. Medic's eyebrow rose.

"Vhat are you talking about?" he asked, moving Sniper's hand so that he could apply a soothing pressure to Sniper's head. Sniper closed his eyes and sighed.

"If I told you something odd, would you think I'm crazy?"

"Hmmm…" Medic mused. "More zan likely, ja."

"I…" Sniper faltered, debating on telling the doctor or not. "Well, you see…"

~O~

Back at the BLU base, BLU Spy was gleefully reviewing his findings. He was giddy with excitement at what he had discovered the previous night. He looked though his notebook, editing here and there.

So the RED Sniper really was an animal. Spy had no clue just what had happened, but he was determined to find out. Was the RED Medic experimenting on the other REDs? Was this some type of new warfare? Spy closed his notebook and lit a cigarette. He was going to have to spy again, but this time he wanted to. His findings could get him quite the reward with the BLU superiors.

"Solch ein gutes Krabbe…" Spy frowned and shoved his notebook into his jacket. He turned around just in time to see BLU Medic enter the kitchen and cooing at something in his gloved hand. Medic looked up when he realized that he wasn't alone, and grinned at Spy.

"Hello Herr Spy," he said, walking over to the cabinets to remove a bar of chocolate. He still held something in his hand, and Spy looked at it curiously.

It was…well, it was some kind of red crab. Although, it had very odd markings on its face, reminding Spy of his own balaclava. The crab suddenly noticed Spy watching him and rushed up Medic's arm to hide on his shoulder, giving a startled squeak as it did so.

"What is zhat zhing?" Spy asked, expelling smoke as he did. Medic looked up from breaking the chocolate up and glanced at the crab on his shoulder.

"It's my pet crab. I got earlier zhis year," he said, bringing a piece of chocolate to the crab. The crab nibbled at it contentedly, holding the small piece in its claws.

"Why did he hide when I looked at him?"

"He is just shy. He doesn't like it vhen people stare at him. Zhat's vhy he spends most of his time in ze infirmary," Medic pocketed the rest of the chocolate, still grinning at the BLU Spy. "His name is Spion."

Spy raised an eyebrow at that.

"Because his markings look like a Spy mask?" He asked. Oh, Spy really did not like the grin he received for that.

"Among ozher zhings," Medic replied. He reached up and stroked the crab affectionately.

~O~

"Hmmm…" RED Medic mused in interest as RED Sniper ate his oatmeal. "So I am Alpha, zhen?"

"I guess. The only way to become Alpha is to defeat the previous Alpha in a fight. Did you do anything like that?" Sniper asked.

"Vell, I did sedate you on your second night viz my syringe gun. Does zhat count?"

"Guess so."

"And now you are saying zat you can hear ze volf in your head?" Medic asked excitedly.

"Yeah, he's been helping me a lot on the field, but he can cause a really bad headache when he gets upset," Sniper set the now empty bowl aside. He did feel better after eating something, but his body was still sore. He gingerly settled back into the pillows.

"Vell, zhat explains your impressive kill streak yesterday-oh, Herr Sniper, are you in pain?"

"Just sore is all," Sniper sighed, closing his eyes. They shot open again when he felt Medic lift one of his legs up. "Doc, what are you-" But his protest dissolved into a moan when he felt the Medic's fingers digging into his muscles.

"Just relax," Medic soothed. "Zhis vill help you feel better. My, you are very tense. Zese transformations are not good for your health."

"I coulda bloody told you that," Sniper muttered, closing his eyes in relief. Medic chuckled softly and Sniper smiled to himself.

"Hey Doc, Heavy wanted me ta tell ya-" Sniper suddenly looked to the door to see Scout frozen in place with his eyes and mouth wide open. Medic paused, his hands still on Sniper's leg, and looked between his patient and the Scout. Sniper opened his mouth to say something, but Scout's shocked expression morphed into one of rage and hatred. He left, slamming the door behind him.

Sniper leapt out of bed, ignoring the protesting of his legs, and began to look around for something to put on.

"Herr Sniper, vhat is vrong? Did I do something vrong?" Medic asked, standing and retrieving a spare pair of pants.

"It's not your fault, Doc," Sniper quickly slid them on. "This is between me and Scout."

"Oh ja," Medic said, remembering the previous night. "He is your mate." Sniper froze.

"How did you-"

"Zhat does not matter!" Medic said, pushing Sniper towards the door. "He vas obviously upset by my hands on you. You must go to him!" Sniper buttoned the pants and stumbled from the infirmary. Medic sighed heavily and sat on one of the beds.

"Zhat boy is so lucky to have zhat beautiful Heckenschütze," he muttered.

"Scout!" Sniper ran to catch up with the Bostonian. Scout just looked back and glared at the Aussie.

"I got nothin' ta say ta ya!" he said. Sniper growled and grabbed Scout's hand.

"What is your problem?" Scout tried to wrench his hand away, but Sniper held fast.

"You are my problem!" Scout snarled. "You and that damn Nazi in there. Both of yous actin' like a couple of fags all the time!" Sniper gave a look of confusion.

"Me and the Doc? But-"

"Save it!" Scout finally got his hand free. "I know you and the kraut are fags for each other. Well, I don't like it, you fairy!"

"Scout, just listen-" Sniper tried to speak, tried to takes Scout's hand again, but Scout just punched him as hard as he could in the face. Sniper fell back into the wall, clutching his bleeding and probably broken nose.

Sniper looked up with hurt in his eyes. In the back of his mind, a great sorrow came from the wolf. His mate did not love him, and it hurt more than anything.

"You're dead ta me, fag," said Scout as he walked away. "Dead!"

Sniper slid down the wall, his hands stained red with blood. Why did he feel so heartbroken? He didn't even have feelings for Scout, right? He was just friends with him, right? And yet, that little mongrel always seemed to make him smile. Always seemed to make everything seem ok. Sniper had enjoyed the Scout's company immensely over the past few months, and the two had grown close. Were they really that close?

But even so, the Scout had made his stance on homosexuality clear. He never hesitated to talk about 'how gross two dudes kissing' was. He always told stories about 'some fag who got the crap beat outta him' back home. And he was proud to talk about all the girls he had been with. The answer was clear: Scout was straight as an arrow. Sniper sighed through his mouth as he realized that he had developed feelings for the wrong person. He could never be with Scout.

'MATE HAS REJECTED US.' Came the voice of the wolf. Sniper nodded, not even caring if the wolf couldn't see it or not.

'WE MUST FIND ANOTHER MATE.'


	8. A Nightly Thing

"Herr Scout said vhat?!" Medic felt over Sniper's nose, making sure that it had healed properly. Sniper sniffled, eyes still on the floor.

"It hurts, Doc," he said. "I never knew it could hurt so much." Medic pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Zhat stupid boy," he said. "Maybe if I talk to him…"

"He wouldn't listen to me," Sniper said. "I don't think he's gonna listen to you." Medic sighed and plopped down on the bed that was next to Sniper's.

"Herr Sniper I really must apologize," he said. Sniper smiled grimly and pat the Medic on the shoulder.

"It's not your fault," he said. "I fell for the wrong bloke is all."

"So you really are homosexual? I zhought zhat vas zhe volf," said Medic.

"You won't…you won't tell anyone, will you?" Sniper said with a cringe. Medic smiled warmly and stood to sit down next to Sniper.

"Of course not, mein lieber Freund. Even if it wasn't just doctor-patient confidentiality," he said. "I hold many secrets, and I assure you zhat your own is very safe."

Sniper tried to smile, but instead seemed to deflate.

"I dunno what to do," he said. "For once I have no idea what to do."

"Maybe it's a sign. A sign zhat you and Herr Scout vere not meant to be." Medic smiled, but it faltered when Sniper didn't move. "Look, I could give you zhe typical speech zhat zese American mothers give zheir daughters. Um, Something about fish, I believe. Zhere are many spices on a fish, and you vill…nein, zhat can't be it. Um… zhere are many fish on a plate and one day you vill taste zhe… ach, how does it go?" He broke off when he heard a snort and chuckle from Sniper.

"Ah," Medic smiled. "Zere ve go. I may not have used zhe technique I vanted, but I got you to smile anyvay." Sniper chuckled again and sighed.

"Thanks, Doc," he said.

~O~

BLU Spy stared at the innocent doors to the BLU infirmary. He threw his cigarette aside and scowled. He hated asking others for information, but he needed information now, and the only person he could ask was in that infirmary. He had presented his notes to his superiors, but they wanted more. They wanted more information, and they wanted him to catch the RED Sniper. Well, Spy had no knowledge of wolves, but there was someone who did.

Spy opened the doors to the infirmary, spotting the BLU Medic at his desk. Medic looked up from his paper work, a Starling perched on his wrist. Medic began gathering up his papers as Spy neared.

"Herr Spy," Medic said in greeting. "Can I help you viz something?" Spy glanced down at the papers and could swear he saw the word 'tentacles.' Medic shoved the papers into a drawer and grinned up at the Spy.

"I need information," Spy said. "You are zhe only one who can 'elp me."

"Oh…" Medic's tone had a dangerous note to it. "So zhat's how it is, ja? You avoid me except vhen you need my help."

"You 'ave made it your goal to give me tentacles," Spy quipped. "Can you really blame me?"

Medic chuckled and said he didn't. His gray eyes regarded Spy, and Spy could barely suppress a shiver. He had always been slightly jealous of how dark and cold Medic could make his eyes. How he could make even the bravest man shiver with just a look.

Medic blinked slowly, his grin still in place, loving how Spy was nearly squirming under his gaze.

"So," he said. "vhat information did you need?" Spy huffed slightly and straightened his back as far as it would go in an effort to appear unfazed by Medic.

"Something I zhink you will enjoy telling me. I need information about wolves," he said. He dearly wished he could light a cigarette, but Medic had made it clear that smoking was not allowed in his infirmary when he had removed Spy's lungs and left him half dead on a table for three days. Spy still had nightmares about those three days.

"Volves?" Medic said in surprise, an eyebrow arching under his messy bangs. "Vhy do you need to know about volves?"

"More specifically I need to trap zhem," Spy explained. "Zhe bushman told me zhat 'e 'as seen some wolves near our base and you know 'ow I like to take my nightly strolls. I do not want to kill one, so I zhought zhat catching zhem and releasing zhem elsewhere would be better."

"Hmmm…" Medic mused. He brushed away some crumbs Spion had left on his desk. He knew that Spy was lying. He knew his teammates better than Spy did, something he always took great pride in. Being ignored, avoided, and feared had allowed Medic to observe the team as much as he needed. He knew that Spy had no love for animals and wouldn't think twice before putting a bullet in a wolf's head. Perhaps Spy was trying to get on his good side. Well, he would have to try much harder than that.

"Volves are often more afraid of us zhan ve are zhem, Herr Spy," Medic finally said. "So you need not vorry about being attacked on a stroll. If you trap or kill a volf it vill because you sought zhem out for vhatever reason. I vould recommend against doing zhat, Spy. It vill prove to be very hazardous to your health." The sadistic glint in his eye made it clear just what he meant and Spy found himself unable to tolerate being in the infirmary any more. He quickly bade Medic goodbye and left.

Spion slowly walked out of the Medic's collar and down his arm to his hand. He squeaked something at Medic who in turn stroked the crab's back.

"He's such a silly Spy, isn't he?" Medic cooed. Spion purred in response.

~O~

RED Sniper ended up spending the whole day in the infirmary. The pain from the morning combined with the Scout's rejection gave Medic enough reason to confine him to his bed. RED Medic had barred Sniper from fighting as well, and made sure to take his sweet time when responding to any calls of help from the RED Scout.

The fight had ended in RED victory, mainly because everyone had been aware of Sniper's poor health and had devised ways to overcome being one man short. Soldier had been ready to break down the door of the infirmary and demand that Sniper still fight, but a glare from Medic and a reminder that his physical was in a few days silenced him. Sniper had gratefully slept and rested the day away, his body slowly regaining its strength, and the pain ebbing away.

Medic checked up on Sniper after the fight, giving a small examination before smiling and informing Sniper that he looked much better than that morning. Sniper felt much better as well, but Medic wanted to keep him under observation. Sniper had no objections, opting to eat his meals without complaint and go back to sleep. Tonight there was no full moon and he would be able to finally get some sleep.

"I vill be right back, Herr Sniper," Medic said, striding past the Aussie. "I am going to get some food for us."

Sniper sat up in his bed, watching Medic leave. He looked outside to see the sun had nearly set. He nearly panicked when he remembered that the full moon was over and he wouldn't be changing tonight. He felt a little restless and stood up to walk around a bit. He was still shirtless and in the thin patient pants that he had put on earlier: white with vertical red stripes. Sniper was debating taking them off. He was feeling a little warm.

Sniper suddenly gasped as a wave of prickling heat hit him, nearly sending him to his knees with dizziness. This heat felt very familiar and Sniper felt panic race through him. He could already feel pain and pressure seep into his body. He could feel his muscles swelling with raw power. Why was this happening? The moon wasn't full. He shouldn't be changing! Oh, but there was something even worse…

…he wasn't in his cell.

Medic came back later with a tray of food. He opened the door and set the food aside, noting Sniper's absence.

"Hm, perhaps he is in zhe bathroom-" but then Medic noticed the shreds of Sniper's pants on the floor. He gasped and looked around, heading to the back door. The back door was opened, and pawprints in the sand led out into the night.

"Oh, Scheiße," Medic said. He grabbed his syringe gun and ran after the prints.

~O~

Scout was bored. It was late, and he was all alone outside. It was also raining, but not too bad. He swung his bat and lightly hit his baseball once again, watching as it soared through the air. He walked after it, dragging his feet. He had had a rough day. Well, that was putting it lightly. Without Sniper, he'd had no cover. That meant that he was fair game to any BLU who could get close enough. Plus, the RED Medic had barely healed him. Scout had to rely on Engineer's dispensers for most of the match. Scout growled to himself and swung his bat again. Damn that Medic. Damn him for being with Sniper. Damn Sniper for being all queer for Medic.

Scout broke from his thoughts when he heard a growl. He looked over to see a giant grey wolf growling at him. In the wolf's mouth was Scout's ball, and the ball promptly exploded when the wolf clenched its jaws and crushed it.

Scout gasped, but then scowled and fell into a defensive position. This must be the wolf that Engineer had seen a few days ago. Well, Scout sure as hell wasn't going to run from a wolf after he had faced the BLU Heavy earlier that day.

The wolf lunged, but Scout was able to dodge. He swiftly brought his bat down on the Wolf's side. The wolf yelped, but didn't fall, much to Scout's chagrin. Scout continued to dodge the wolf's attacks while the wolf managed to take every hit from Scout's bat in stride. For the while, no one was winning. Scout finally swung one more time, but the wolf ducked and plowed into Scout, knocking him down and pinning him.

Scout felt his bat fall and roll away, leaving him defenseless. The wolf snarled above him, and Scout looked into its eyes. He wasn't scared. The wolf could kill him, but he would just respawn and come back for round two. Scout scowled in annoyance, but suddenly caught sight of a scar on the left side of the wolf's muzzle. It kinda looked like…

"Zhat is enough!" Scout looked over to see Medic standing off to the side with his syringe gun. He was soaked to the bone, and had a look that seemed to be worry mixed with anger. The wolf didn't seem to hear him as it snarled louder and bared its teeth.

"I am your Alpha! You vill obey!" Medic shouted, raising his gun. The wolf suddenly whimpered and got off of Scout. The wolf shuffled over to Medic, head down low, and tail between his legs. Scout jumped up and stared after Medic as he led the wolf away.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, catching up to Medic. "The hell was that crap? Where the hell did this thing come from and why is it listening to you?"

"Go to bed, Scout," Medic snapped, not even looking at the young man. Scout scoffed.

"You aint my ma. Tell me what the fuck's-"

"GEH INS BETT!" Medic's bellow echoed around the rain, and Scout found himself scared as he looked into Medic's raged filled eyes. He stood frozen as Medic led the wolf back to his infirmary. Scout then rubbed his arms and started for his room, feeling like a small child.

~O~

Medic closed the door and looked the wolf over in surprise. Sniper hung his head and whined in shame.

"Ach," said Medic, kneeling down before Sniper. "I am not mad at you. You did not hurt Herr Scout, and I am proud of you for zhat. I know zhat you don't really like Herr Scout all zhat much right now." Sniper licked Medic's face and panted happily. Medic chuckled.

"But vhy are you here? Zhe moon is no longer full. You should not be here." Sniper sniffed the floor and then trotted off to Medic's desk. He returned and dropped a book in Medic's lap. Medic recognized it as the book that Demo had been reading out of. He flipped to a bookmarked chapter and began to read.

"Unlike a natural werewolf, a werewolf zhat vas created zhrough magical means vill change every night regardless of zhe phase of zhe moon. Ach, so you vill show up every night? Herr Sniper vill not be happy about zhis." He scratched Sniper behind the ears and smiled. "Still, at least you are behaving now."

Medic then noticed the different color of Sniper's fur.

"Was ist das? Vasn't your fur black before?" Medic thought back to that night and remembered what Demo had said. "Your fur changes because of your mate. Does zhis mean zhat you do not consider Scout to be your mate anymore?" Sniper whined and lay down with his head in Medic's lap. Medic stroked his head and neck soothingly. "Do not vorry about it, Sniper," he said. "I am here for you. I vill alvays be here for you." Sniper looked up at Medic and licked his hand before gnawing on it like a puppy. Medic chuckled and stood up. "Ve are razher vet," he said. "And you got razher dirty from your fight. Come viz me and I vill give you a bath." Sniper barked happily and followed Medic to the bathroom.


	9. Flashbacks and Sabotage

Sniper was getting used to waking up in Medic's infirmary. He blinked wearily and groaned. He was on the floor, and a chair was next to his face.

There was also something in his mouth.

Sniper's tongue pushed the offending object out and he saw a rubber duck flop to the floor.

Huh…

Obviously he had found something to entertain himself last night. He was just glad that he hadn't chewed on a teammate instead. Why had he changed last night? It wasn't a full moon.

Sniper slowly sat up and noticed a pair of legs next to him. A soft snoring was coming from above him, and he looked up to see a slumbering Medic. It looked as if Medic had fallen asleep while doing paper work. His head rested on his arms, his back bent at an angle, and a pen lay on the papers next to him.

Medic was also snoring slightly.

Sniper groaned again as he managed to stand up, noticing that he was once again naked. He staggered to a cabinet of clean patient clothes and slid on a red patterned shirt and matching pants. He looked back over in time to see Medic stir and wake up.

"Oh, Herr Sniper," He yawned and tried to sit up, but met resistance half way up in the form of a painful crick in his back. "Ach! Oh, I should have just gone to bed. Vhy did I not listen to myself?" He leaned forward and prepared to try again.

"I changed last night," said Sniper.

"Ja, you did."

"It wasn't a full moon."

"Nein-ACH! N-nein it vasn't."

"Did I hurt anyone?"

Medic finally managed to get himself out of his chair, but he was still bent at an odd angle. He staggered over to lean on one of the beds.

"You did not hurt anyone. Vell, you did hurt Herr Skelett, but he vas already dead." He pointed to a skeleton that he kept on display. Herr Skelett was missing one of his legs. Medic groaned again as he attempted to stand up. Sniper looked on in pity until he got an idea.

"Here," he said, walking over to Medic, "I know what'll make ya feel better."

~O~

Scout was eating his breakfast in the mess hall with his team. Sure the eggs were a bit runny and the bacon was burnt, but he was hungry and he ate without complaint. He had been having a good morning until he noticed that Medic and Sniper were both missing.

"What do y'all reckon they get up to?" Engineer asked. "Sniper's been sleeping in the infirmary for the past three days."  
"Is sick?" Heavy asked. Soldier scowled.

"That convict has been performing just fine on the field. If he wants to be sick he can be sick on his own time!"

"What if it's serious, though?" Engineer continued. "What if it's contagious?" He smirked as he watched the Spy's eyes freeze in terror before bolting off to wash his hands.

"Germaphobe…" Engineer muttered.

"He's just a weak maggot," Soldier said as he sunk his teeth into a piece of bacon that was so burnt it could have been a lump of charcoal. Pyro had cooked and he was still trying to get smoke stains off the walls from it.

"I don't think there's much to worry about," Demo said. "Maybe the doc's just experimentin' on him."

"Maybe they're fuckin'" Scout bit out. The table froze and stared at Scout with various expressions, but the Bostonian ignored them all and left without a word.

In truth, he wished he was wrong. He had no idea why he did. He had no idea why he wanted Sniper to not be with anyone. He had no idea why he hated the Medic so much for being with Sniper.

Well, a small voice told him that he did know.

Oh, but he couldn't be gay. He had been raised in a city where queers were beaten and killed. Most of his brothers had beaten their share of queers to within an inch of their lives. Scout had been horrified of it when he was younger, and those same brothers would pin him to the wall and tell him 'Don't be like them. Don't you become no faggot. You do, and we'll hafta kill ya. Cuz we aint gonna be brothers with no fags.'

Scout still had nightmares of those times.

It had grown worse when he had entered high school. When he had gone through puberty and began to notice the members of the opposite sex.

Or rather… the members of the same sex.

His preferences had reared their ugly heads many times, and each time he would stamp them down, the words of his brothers echoing in his mind. The images of their victims from when they would take him with them if only to drive their lessons in further.

'Don't cry for them cuz they don't deserve it. These filthy fags got what was comin' to them. Don't cry! Only fags cry. You a fag? Do we hafta beat you up to? Do we hafta kill ya to save our family? You a fag? Then stop cryin'! '

Scout felt a small whine leave his mouth as tears welled up in his eyes. No matter how hard he had tried, no matter how many times he prayed and went to church, no matter how many girls he slept with, he could no longer deny it.

Scout was gay.

Even worse… he was in love with Sniper.

Scout sniffled and rubbed his eyes, but at the same time he felt as if a weight had been taken off of his shoulders. It was as if finally admitting it had finally released him from the nightmares of his youth.

But what would his brothers say?

Would they really kill him?

Would they really beat him up and put him in the hospital?

No, Sniper would protect him. Sniper was tough and strong. Sniper was loyal. Sniper would protect him...

…wouldn't he?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Scout wiped his face and started for the infirmary. He was gonna try to repair his friendship with Sniper. If he could do that, then maybe he could finally tell Sniper what his feelings were. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe Sniper wasn't with Medic. Maybe-

"Oh! Herr Sniper!"

Scot froze, his hand poised to knock on the infirmary door. His hearts stopped as he heard Medic moan again.

"You have such talented hands," The German sighed.

Anger. Fury. Rage.

It all built up within Scout as he clenched his fists and stomped off. It had been true. Sniper was indeed involved with Medic. That goddamn Nazi had stolen Sniper from him.

Oh, but Scout was a man of vengeance. He was going to make sure Medic suffered for what he had done.

~O~

"Oh, Sniper," Medic sighed in bliss as Sniper dug his fingers into the Medic's back and soothed the muscle there.

"Damn, you're tense," Sniper remarked as he moved to another spot.

"You try having my job and not being tense. I have to-oh!- vatch over you dummkopfs and run all over zhe-EE! –field and make sure zhat everyone is healzhy. Zhen I have to stay up all night to do papervork."

"That does sound a bit hard," Sniper said as he backed off. Medic straightened up and was very happy to no longer feel any pain in his back.

"Zhat vas very good, Sniper. Vhere did you learn zhat?"

"Sniping gives me back problems sometimes," Sniper shrugged. "So I just made sure I know how to treat them. Besides, I figured you were nice enough to give me a massage before that I should give you one too."

"Vell I shall definitely come to you if my back acts up again. Now come, ve need to get to zhe mess hall before zhe fight starts." Sniper nodded and followed Medic from the room.

~O~

No one was around when Scout strolled through the infirmary doors. No one was around when he walked around and found his target. No one was around when Scout examined the Medic's medigun.

The Medigun was simple enough. It had a pack, two tesla coils, a container of some red goopy stuff, a hose, and a barrel. It was so simple.

It was simple enough to break it easily.

Weapons that were broken during battle had their own respawn and came back just fine. A weapon that was broken before battle, however, stayed broken no matter how many times it went through respawn. The only way to fix it would be to fix it by hand before or after the next battle. Scout glanced at the closk to see that they had to fight in twenty minutes. Medic was running late today and would no doubt not bother to check his weapon in his rush to get to the battle.

Well, that just made Scout's goal even easier.

Scout looked back at the medigun and tried to figure out what would be the best way to go about achieving what he wanted. The metal of the pack was tough and so was the rubber of the hose. The container of goop seemed shatter resistant, but then Scout noticed the tiny hose that connected the container to the pack. It felt like regular tubing, and Scout looked around for something sharp.

Of course, the infirmary was quite the host to sharp tools.

Scout took a scalpel from a nearby tray and cut a long line into the tiny hose, careful to do it in a way that Medic wouldn't notice. His work done, Scout replaced the scalpel and left the infirmary.

Medic would get what was coming to him during this battle.


	10. Spy Challenges Sniper

The BLU Spy found himself oddly nervous as he smoked a cigarette over the corpse of the RED Engineer. A nearby sentry still shot out sparks and crackled under the poison of the elecrtosapper. Why was Spy nervous? Well, he was going after the RED Scout today. Not that he never went after the RED Scout before, it was just that today the RED team would think Spy had a vendetta against the Scout. He was going to hurt the Scout that badly.

It was suicide!

After seeing the RED Sniper change into that beast and claim Scout as his mate Spy knew that any attack against the Scout would be the equivalent of dancing on a mine field.

But it was his job to take risks…

Spy crushed the cigarette underfoot as the Engineer's body faded away.

This was going to be very painful.

This was going to be very frightening.

This was going to be one of the hardest jobs Spy had ever done.

But he had to do it…

He had to know just how strong the bond between the Aussie and the Bostonian was…

~O~

On the other side of the field, the RED Heavy was really starting to worry about his Medic. Medic had looked slightly pale before battle, but now he was deathly white and sweating. Heavy found himself having to slow down more and more as Medic began puffing and wheezing before nearly staggering after him. Heavy had suggested a rest numerous times or at least asked Medic to stop so that he could examine him, but each time Medic had glared and told him to keep going. That the team depended on him to do his job.

Oddly enough, anytime Medic used his medigun he seemed to get worse.

Medic had turned his gun on himself a few times and earned a slight reprieve from whatever was affecting him, but it always returned with a renewed vengeance.

Heavy looked back to see Medic drop the barrel of his gun and collapse to his knees. Before Heavy could say a word, Medic began to dry heave before vomiting up his breakfast.

"Doktor!" Heavy cried, running back to his friend. "Doktor, you are sick. You cannot fight."

Medic groaned and wiped his mouth. He looked up to say something, but a wave of dizziness forced him forward onto his elbows. Heavy then noticed some kind of red liquid slowly dripping from the pack of the medigun.

There was a red stain on the back of Medic's coat as well, but Heavy had thought it was blood from a BLU victim. Medic always loved to be drenched in the blood of fallen enemies.

Obviously, it wasn't.

"Doktor, what is wrong with Heidi?" Heavy asked, using the name he had given Medic's gun. Medic looked up in confusion and turned to look at where Heavy was pointing.

Medic gasped, his eyes going wide, and he brought some of the liquid up in front of his face.

Heavy reached out to Medic "What is-"

"Don't touch it!" Medic slapped Heavy's hand away with his untainted hand. "It's poisonous."

Heavy's eyes went wide as Medic swayed again.

Poison?

Had he heard him right?

"Poison? Doktor carries poison in Heidi?" He backed up a step and stared down at the now shaking Medic. The red liquid from the pack was leaking even more now and staining Medic's coat. It soaked through the layers of fabric and seeped into Medic's pores, spreading its toxin through Medic's body.

Oddly enough, Medic was calm.

Or was that because of his medical training?

"It's zhe chemical zhat makes zhe healing vapors," Medic explained. "In liquid form, it is very toxic, but as an inhalant, it has zhe opposite effect. Right now it is making its vay zhrough my system."

"Doktor will die? But respawn-"

"I vill not die," Medic growled out. "but I vill not be able to fight eizher. And zhis is cannot be fixed by respawn. I am useless now."

He sounded so sad. So sorry. As if this was somehow his fault, but it wasn't. Heavy knew sabotage when he saw it, and that's exactly was this was. He would have a talk with the team later, but right now he needed to protect his friend.

"I will help-" but Medic cut him off again.

"Nein, you need to go. Zhey need you out zhere. I vill…(Medic looked around) vell, I vill just stay here and stay out of sight. Zhere is not much else I can do." That was all Medic managed to get out before collapsing onto his side.

"Doktor!" Heavy knelt down wrung his hands nervously. He so wanted to help Medic, but he couldn't touch the doctor too much without getting poisoned himself. Heavy quickly looked around for anything that might help.

The RED cart.

The cart normally held a bomb, but it wasn't a payload match today so the cart was empty. Heavy carefully dragged Medic over to the cart and laid him inside before running back to pick up Sasha. He guided the cart down the rails until it reached a suitable spot near the RED base. Heavy wished he could take the doctor to the infirmary, but with BLUs trying to enter the base he wasn't willing to risk it.

Heavy gently laid Medic back on the ground and flipped the cart over to shield Medic.

"Don't worry Doktor," Heavy said as he picked Sasha back up, "I will be back for you. I will not forget!"

Then he ran off before he could convince himself to stay.

~O~

Scout was nervous. Not the 'butterflies in your stomach' nervous. The 'holy hell, I can't breathe' nervous. The full weight of what he had done earlier had hit him and he found himself having regrets. It had been stupid to disable Medic like that. It was something that would affect the whole team because they always found themselves relying on Medic quite a bit during and after battle. With no medigun to heal…well, Scout hoped that Engineer could keep his dispensers up.

Scout took a deep breath and straightened his hat. Everything would be ok. Medic had no way of knowing just who messed with his gun, and the tube would be easy enough to replace so it wouldn't be hard to fix it. Plus he still had that giant Medigun in the infirmary for after the battle. Everything would be ok.

He cocked his scattergun and ran forward, but tripped over something. He spun head over heels across the ground, disorienting himself. Before he could get back up something invisible knocked him out.

There was a hiss and a puff of blue smoke…

"Bonne nuit, petit lapin," BLU Spy smirked and reached down to pick up the unconscious Scout.

~O~

"Engineer!" Heavy called out after mowing down the BLU Soldier. Engineer looked up from the level one sentry he was currently trying to upgrade.

"Is horrible!" Heavy continued, making his way over to the Texan. "Doktor is sick!"

"Sick?" Engineer repeated. Well, he had noticed Medic looked a little pale before the battle. "What do you mean?"

"Someone sabotaged Heidi!" Heavy said. "Doktor was poisoned and cannot fight!"

Engineer growled at the thought of someone breaking the medigun. He hoped it had been the enemy spy and not a RED. He fingered his wrench and looked down at his sentry in thought.

"I'll see if I can get some more dispensers up," he said. "Where's the doc now?"

"I hid him," Heavy explained. "He is under cart by base."

"Make sure you check on him whenever you can," said Engineer, already preparing to get a dispenser up. "We can't afford to have him captured by the BLUs. In the meantime, see if you can find Scout and help him get into the BLU base." Heavy nodded and ran off. Engineer sighed heavily and looked down at Anna, his sentry.

"Sorry girl, but we need a dispenser more." He slowly and sadly began to dismantle Anna for her metal.

~O~

RED Soldier wasn't as stupid as others thought. If the mood was right, he could act and think in a very sane and smart manner. This was one of those moments even if he was currently pinning the RED Sniper up against the outer wall of his nest. Even if his face was twisted in a scowl.

"Where's the Doc?" He asked. "I've called for him five times and he hasn't come yet." Sniper rolled his eyes and snarled in Soldier's face.

"How should I bloody know where the Doc is?" He said. "I'm not his keeper."

"You've spent a lot of time with him recently," Soldier pointed out. Sniper ripped the Soldier's nads from his shirt collar and pushed him back.

"I don't know where he is," he repeated. "Why don't you go ask Heavy?" Soldier didn't say anything, and his face didn't so much as twitch.

"I'll find him," he muttered before rocket jumping away.

Sniper growled low and raced into his nest, setting up in record time and scouring the field through his scope. He popped off a few head shots, and then started looking around again. As he looked he grew worried. Not only was Medic nowhere to be seen, Scout had disappeared too. The rest of the team was fighting valiantly, although Engineer's sentry numbers were very low and his dispensers seemed to be everywhere. Sniper leaned back in confusion. What had happened to Medic and Scout?

A sudden flash on the field caught Sniper's attention, and he aimed his scope at where the flash had been. He saw the BLU Spy looking up at him with a deadly smirk. The flash had been the sunlight reflecting off of whatever the Spy was holding in his hand...

Sniper stopped breathing when he saw the bloodstained dog tags of the RED Scout dangling from the BLU Spy's fist.


	11. Surrender To Me

RED Medic slowly woke up. He was in pain, his stomach was rolling, and every part of him seemed to burn and ache. His glasses had fallen off somewhere, leaving him with blurred and distorted vision, but there wasn't much light to help him see where he was anyway.

Nonetheless he looked around slowly, not moving from his curled up position on the ground, to try to figure out what had happened. Obviously Heavy hadn't left him where he had collapsed, and Medic smiled at the thought of the lumbering giant's loyalty. He was under something wooden. Something that smelled of gunpowder and sweat and perhaps a bit of blood. Taking in the slots between the wood and the shape of the object, Medic deduced that he as in fact lying underneath the bomb cart.

Well…that suited him just fine.

Medic hated to admit it, but he really was more of a hindrance than help right now without both his medigun and his ability to fight. He hated being so useless to everyone, especially since his job was already near thankless from some of the REDs. He could already hear the harsh lecture he was sure to get from Soldier when this fight was over.

Medic closed his eyes, content to get some more rest and help his body purge the toxins…

But then the cart rose and bathed the Medic in harsh light.

He kept his eyes closed and tried not to twitch so much.

"What the? Hey, look what I found!"

Oh, Gott in himmel…

Medic recognized that voice and accent as belonging to the BLU Scout.

"Was ist das? Vhat did you find?"

Oh, ficken, the BLU Medic was with him.

Maybe if Medic played dead they would leave him alone…

~O~

BLU Spy was still smirking and idly swinging Scout's dog tags when Sniper came into view.

'WHY ARE YOU RISKING YOUR LIFE? THIS MATE REJECTED US.'

Maybe, Sniper thought, but I'll be damned if I let this bloody spook take him away from me.

"What do you want with me, Spook?" He asked out loud. The urge to scrape that smug smirk off the Spy's face with his kukri was growing by the second. Spy laughed and stilled the dog tags in his hand.

"I am surprised zhat you came," he said. "Well, perhaps I'm not. Considering what I know…"

"What could you possibly know?" Sniper growled.

"I know your secret," Spy hissed. Sniper paled slightly and took a step back.

"You what?"

"After you gave me zhe charming scar on my arm, I decided zhat something was wrong at zhe RED base. So I did a little snooping after hours. Imagine my surprise to see an animal turn into a bigger animal. A wolf, if I'm not mistaken. And zhen I 'eard what you said about zhe brat. 'E is your mate, non?"

Sniper gripped his kukri tightly.

"What did you do to him?"  
"Weapons down, Bushman," Spy sneered. "Unless you never want to see zhe brat again."

Sniper's face held a look of the deepest loathing as he set his gun and kukri down, nudging them away with his foot.

"Your mate is alive if a little…battered," Spy continued, walking forward. "If you don't want us to take him prisoner zhen you will have to surrender to me." Spy kicked the weapons far out of Sniper's reach.

"Where have you got him?" Sniper snapped.

"You are in no position-"

"You take me to him. You prove to me that he's ok. Then and only then will I surrender and let you do whatever. You deny me this, and I'll make you wish you never joined this war." Sniper bared his teeth, but made no other move. Spy scowled, realizing that he was stuck. On the other hand, if showing this animal that the brat was ok was all it took in return for no struggling on his part then why not? Spy sneered and pulled a rope from his pocket.

"'Ands behind your back, Bushman," he hissed. "I will tie you up, and zhen I will show you your brat."

Sniper scowled but obeyed.

~O~

"Ah, such a nice day, ja?" BLU Medic said. RED Medic glared at him from the cart. BLU Medic had flipped the cart back over and deposited RED Medic inside. He was still unable to move.

"Such a shame about your veapon," BLU continued, leaning against the cart with his arms crossed over his chest. "I have never experienced zhe effects of zhiz toxin, but I have heard zhat zhey can be quite painful." He bent to pick up a stick and looked at RED with a thoughtful expression. "Vell… vhat kind of doctor am I to pass up such an opportunity?"

BLU reached into his coat and pulled out a small pen and pencil. RED looked confused until BLU started muttering in German and carefully moving RED with the help of the stick. It took a moment for RED to realize that BLU was examining him and taking notes as if he were back in the hospital.

"Schwienhund…leaving your kamerades to suffer vhile you play around…" RED growled.

"In case you have not noticed I could care less vhat happens to zhose dummkopfs," BLU casually replied. "I am paid to keep zhem alive and so I do. Vhat more should be expected of me? Hmm… your veins are beginning to darken. Zhe toxin is getting zhicker in your blood."

RED closed his eyes and grimaced at those words. The pain had been exponentially growing while he had been lying in the cart.

"Tell me, Herr Doktor," BLU mocked and leaned in, "on a scale of ein to zehn viz ein being a papercut and zehn being having your organs removed vhile avake, how much pain are you in?"

RED summoned up what moisture he had left in his mouth and responded by spitting in BLU's face.

BLU calmly wiped his face as he straightened up and saw the BLU Scout race by with a red briefcase attached to his back.

"So be it, Herr Doktor…I vill get my answer anozher vay..." BLU twirled the stick before stabbing it into RED.

~O~

Sniper was almost surprised at how much thought had obviously gone into this set up. Spy had chosen a Shed to house his hostage and it was the BLU Soldier who guarded the door. Soldier glared at Sniper from under his helmet and spat at his feet.

"Soldier 'ere is 'oping for a little vengeance after what you did to 'im. I'm sure you were picking bits of 'im out of your teeth for quite a while."

"Shut your goddamn mouth, frog," Soldier snarled. He still moved aside and let the duo into the shed.

Sniper nearly gagged at the overwhelming smell of blood.

Spy wasted no time in knocking Sniper to the ground and lashing his ankles together. Sniper struggled at first, but then caught sight at what had painted the floor red.

It was the RED Scout.

Sniper froze as his eyes traveled over Scout's blood stained form. He was tied together too, but his limbs were twisted in violent ways and obviously broken. He was covered in cuts and gashes, and was unconscious.

"Now zhen, Bushman," Spy casually strode over to Scout, oblivious to the dangerous gleam in Sniper's eyes. "I 'ave a proposition for you." He ran his foot over Scout's side in a mocking way and sneered at the Aussie. "My superiors 'ave become very interested in you and your…ability. Zhey 'ave given me zhe task of capturing you and bringing you to zhem so zhat zhey can study you."

Sniper lay his head down as it started to ache.

'HE THINKS HE CAN SUBDUE US.'

Just hush and go with it. I'm unarmed and there's two of them here.

'THEN LET ME DEAL WITH THEM.'

What?

Sniper closed his eyes briefly as he felt his headache get worse.

"So now zhat you have seen your little brat," Spy continued. "We will let him go, and you will come with us. No fighting. No struggling. Zhis brat will be held here until you are secured at our base. Zhen we will put a bullet in his head and send him to respawn."

Then Spy nudged Scout awake.

Scout was too hurt and tied up to struggle much and he blearily looked around.

"Your lover 'as come zhrough for you," Spy snarked. "so you are, as zhey say, off zhe 'ook. Now say goodbye to zhe bushman."

Scout didn't say anything as he passed out again.

Spy tsked and shrugged before the door opened.

"You said you're taking him in?" Solder said, his hand clutching his shovel. Spy slowly nodded and grinned. "Not until I get mine. I'm gonna make him regret what he did to me."

"Not too much," Spy warned.

'NOW?'

Fine. Do whatever you need to just hurry!

That was Sniper's last thought before everything went dark.

~O~

Heavy was by no means an idiot, despite what his team's Scout might have thought. When the alarm rang to signal ceasefire, and the old crone bellowed that the REDs had lost, Heavy had been making his way back to get Medic when he came across Scout's scattergun. It was a gun that he had named 'Emma' and he knew that Scout loved it greatly. He wouldn't just leave it out in the open like this. Heavy picked up Emma, so small compared to his Sasha, and hung it in his bandolier for safe keeping.

The problem he faced now was trying to figure out what could have happened to Scout.

He couldn't have respawned. Weapons went through respawn so long as you had them with you when you died. So something far more sinister was afoot. Heavy scoured the area around him and his eyes landed on a small blue shed. Well, it had once been blue, but now its door was painted red. The door also hung half off of its hinges, creaking eerily. There was more blood on the ground around it, making it look like something out of a horror movie.

So, obviously it was a good place to start looking.

Heavy held Sasha up, ready to fire as he made his way over. As he neared, he heard someone panting inside the shed. He gave the door a good kick, smashing it off of the last of its hinges and sending it rolling to the side. Heavy peered into the darkened room and was surprised at what he saw.

At the center of the floor sat the RED Sniper.

In his lap lay the injured RED Scout.

It was the Sniper who was panting. He had his arms curled around the Scout and was hunched over. Heavy was shocked at how much blood was on Sniper. Sniper was also shaking slightly, but from what Heavy couldn't guess.

Heavy set Sasha aside and slowly walked into the room.

"Sniper?" he said softly.

Sniper gave a wild cry as he leapt up and struck at Heavy. The balisong that Sniper had held was now sticking out of Heavy's arm from where he had blocked the blow.

Then suddenly, the feral look in Sniper's eyes faded and he stepped back, wavering slightly on the spot.

"Heavy?" He asked. "Oh God…I'm-I'm so sorry, mate."

"Ha!" Heavy chuckled and pulled out the knife, acting as if nothing had happened. "It happens. Besides, tiny knife does not hurt." He tossed the knife aside and took a good look at Sniper.

Heavy decided that Sniper looked terrible. He was covered in blood, but Heavy wasn't sure just how much of it was his. He was injured too, that much Heavy could see. He looked disoriented, had bleeding rope burns on his wrists, and looked like he was about to keel over.

Heavy reached out and grabbed Sniper just as his legs started to give out.

"What happened?" He asked, reaching into his pocket. He bypassed the sandvich and instead took out the napkin. Then he worked on wiping the blood that had accumulated on Sniper's face, more specifically his mouth.

"They...they had Scout," Sniper's voice cracked slightly. "They were gonna take him prisoner. They wanted me too." He fell silent as Heavy wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin aside.

"Who is 'they'?" He asked.

"BLU Spy and BLU Soldier," Sniper's voice sounded a bit stronger and he stood up straighter on his own two feet.

"But you fought them?" Heavy asked. "Killed them?"

Sniper stayed silent as he was bombarded with pieces of memories.

There was a lot of screaming and the feel of meat and blood between his teeth. Someone shot him, another was swinging a shovel. Someone was screaming about 'damned Frenchmen' as Sniper tore into them with his teeth and nails. Another was praying in a foreign language. The rest all blurred into a haze of red.

"Yeah," Sniper finally said. His head perked up and he looked down at Scout. "But none of that's important now," he picked Scout up. "I gotta help him."

Scout woke up with a cry of pain as his broken arm was jostled. He looked fearfully around, but relaxed when he spied the red shirts.

Sniper adjusted Scout, carrying him bridal style, and smiled comfortingly at the younger man.

"Don't you worry, mate," Sniper said softly. "We're gonna get you to the Medic. He'll fix you right up with no problem."

"Actually is problem," Heavy said solemnly. "Medic was poisoned from gun earlier. Someone sabotaged it. He cannot heal."

"What?" Sniper paled. Scout heard what was said and couldn't help the tears from falling. It was like rubbing salt in the wound.

Sniper stepped out of the shed and looked around, trying to comfort Scout.

"Maybe Truckie has a dispenser near here," Sniper said, grasping at straws now. Heavy looked around at the blank landscape and frowned.

"Sniper, is no dispensers here. Have to do mercy kill."

Sniper stopped breathing and nearly dropped Scout. A mercy kill? Sure, it was logical, it was practical, it was the only way to treat Scout right now…

But could he do it? Could he shoot Scout?

Scout had heard the words 'mercy kill' and his crying increased. Sure, he would respawn, but his blood deprived mind conveniently forgot that little fact. He thought he would end up dying for real, and so he began to plead with Sniper.

"Please don't…don't kill me. Please. Please! It's all my fault. My fault…" Scout trailed off into delirious mumbles and Sniper held him closer.

"Scout will die soon anyway," Heavy pointed out. "Losing blood fast. Already delirious. Doktor would say is bad."

Scout continued his pleading.

"Please…all m-my fault…all…fault…" His voice was getting softer and softer.

"Respawn will shut down soon. If he dies then will not come back til morning. Must die now. Must mercy kill," said Heavy. Sniper shut his mind down as he lowered Scout to the ground. Scout tried to cling to him, but Sniper was easily able to remove his hands from his vest. Sniper took Scout's scattergun from Heavy and pointed it at Scout.

Scout stared back with watery eyes that begged for something.

Sniper closed his own eyes… and pulled the trigger.

He was almost deaf to the shot that rang out and the gun fell from his numb fingers. Scout's body was quickly picked up by respawn and faded away. Sniper stood still and concentrated on his breathing.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm overreacting."

Heavy frowned and pat Sniper on the shoulder.

"No, comrade, you are not. Is still big thing to do even though he will not really die. Still hurts. Still takes big man to do. But you do right thing. Now Scout is ok. Now we go back." He picked up Sasha and saw that Emma had faded away with Scout. He noticed Sniper's own empty hands.

"Where are your weapons?" he asked. Sniper jerked slightly and scratched the back of his head.

"Um… my SMG is back up in my nest-"

"Good. Lucy is safe."

"But that spook kicked away my rifle and my kukri."

"Oh! Jill is lost? We must find Jill!"

Heavy then took Sniper by the arm and dragged him away to find his weapons.

~O~

"Oh, man," BLU Scout said cheerfully as he walked beside the cart that BLU Medic was pulling. "We are so getting bonuses for this, I swear."

BLU Medic tuned the little obnoxious gnat out as he glanced back at his unconscious RED counterpart. The man now had several splintered pieces of wood sticking out of his body.

"Why did you want him, anyway?" Scout asked.

"Vhy vaste a perfectly good test subject?" BLU Medic replied, grinning disturbingly. Scout grimaced and looked away, muttering 'freak' under his breath.

Suddenly, the cart jerked to a stop.

BLU Medic spun around and glared, seeing the RED Soldier (sans helmet) standing there and glaring back.

"You have something of ours…" he growled. "I suggest you give him back."

"Or what?" mocked Scout. "It's ceasefire. Rules say you can't hurt us during ceasefire." He grinned cockily and folded his arms. BLU Medic remained silent, watching Soldier grip the cart so hard that the wood began to splinter around his fingers.

"The rules forbid us from using our weapons during ceasefire," said Soldier. "Don't say I can't beat your ass with my bare hands." He cracked his knuckles menacingly.

BLU Medic could defeat a Soldier in a fistfight. Hell, he could beat a Heavy in a fistfight, such was his physical prowess. The only thing, though, was that it was late and Spion needed to be fed soon. An unconscious Medic to test on appealed to him because there was no struggle involved with it. It was a simple 'grab and dash'.

If a Soldier was going to fight over said Medic, well then it wasn't worth the hassle.

BLU Medic removed his hand from the cart and raised both elegantly.

"If you really vant him, zhen you can have him. I vill bow out of zhis," he said. Soldier nodded and turned to the Scout.

"Fuck that!" Scout shouted. "I can beat you no problem!"

"Herr Scout, I really must insist-"

"Fuck you, Nazi!" Scout said. "Go run home like the fag you are."

BLU Medic glared at the Scout and his hands twitched, wanting nothing more than to wrap themselves around that scrawny neck. Then he snorted and grinned.

"Very vell," he said. "Vhen you come crawling back, and you vill be crawling as I guarantee zhat Herr Soldat vill not leave your legs unbroken, do not expect me to heal you. Herr Soldat, good day." Then he turned around and accessed a nearby BLU teleporter.

Scout cracked his knuckles and began to bounce on his feet. Soldier just smiled and chuckled evilly as he pulled the cart behind him.

"Come here, sweetheart." He said to the Scout.

~O~

Everything was chaotic at the RED base after the battle that day. Soldier was shacked up in the infirmary with Medic, trying to patch him up, Scout had locked himself in his room, and Sniper was outside vomiting up bits of BLU Spy and BLU Soldier.

He leaned his head against the base wall, watching the sun begin its trek down to the horizon. He had found his weapons and stored them in his camper, but he was still worried about the Scout. He had tried several times to talk to him, but Scout had just shouted to be left alone so Sniper decided to give him some space.

Everyone had heard about the Scout being taken and then rescued by Sniper and they all had sympathy for the Bostonian.

They also all swore to get a good kill on the BLU Spy and BLU Soldier for the next fight.

Sniper wiped his mouth and stood up, his stomach still rolling.

"Oi!" Demo made his presence known and Sniper turned to look at him.

"So…" Demo grimaced and wring his hands nervously. "I'm afraid I have some bad news, lad."

Sniper did not need bad news right now.

"I spoke with me mother today…"

Oh that didn't sound good.

"She tried so hard, lad…"

Not good.

"But… ya see… tha' book we need…"

Oh, please God no.

"The las' copy go' sold ta some foreigner."

Silence.

Demo watched Sniper with trepidation, trying to gage his reaction.

But there was none.

Sniper just stared at him for a while.

"So there's no hope?" He finally said.

"Oh no, no!" Demo put a hand on Sniper's shoulder. "There's still hope, lad. It's jus' gonna take a wee bit longer now. Tha's all. There's still hope."

Demo awkwardly pat Sniper's shoulder.

"Thanks, Demo," Sniper said. "I just…I just need some time alone now."

Demo nodded and left Sniper alone with a few comforting words.

So Sniper stood there thinking over everything that had happened.

The book was gone, Scout was refusing to talk to him, Medic was down (thank god for the dispenser that Engineer had built after battle), and he was hopelessly screwed.

Sniper took a deep breath and did what all other men would do in his situation.

He bent over and vomited again.

~O~

BLU Medic hummed along softly as the muffled sounds of celebration filtered through his doors. Spion was eating and chirping happily as Medic finished up his paperwork for the night. He had yet to see Scout yet, although he wasn't really surprised. Did he expect to see Scout at all tonight? Nope. Not at all. He would more than likely be absent until respawn turned back on in the morning. The rest of the team had expressed concern until they heard about Scout's idiocy. Now they just wanted to celebrate their victory.

Medic stacked the papers together and stuck them in a drawer to file away later. Spion scuttled over and nuzzled his now empty hand. Medic smiled and picked him up, petting him gently.

"Doc!" Medic didn't even jump at the call of his name. He looked over at his doors to see a very injured and battered BLU Scout crawl in. Medic smiled and laughed as the Scout slowly made his way to his desk.

"Vell," Medic said. "I hope zhat you have learned your lesson." Scout ignored him and looked up, squinting through a black eye.

"Just shut up and heal me," he said. Medic laughed again.

"Do you not remember what I said? I vill not heal you because you acted like a dummkopf and ignored my varnings. I can offer you a bed, or I can give you a mercy kill and check on you in zhe morning. Take your pick." Medic sat back and waited.

"Bet if I was fluffy and walked on four legs you would heal me," Scout muttered angrily.

Unfortunately, Medic still heard him.

Medic's eyes narrowed dangerously and he strode around his desk to stand in front of the Scout.

"Is zhat right?" he said. "Vell, you are correct. Unfortunately you do not walk on four legs and you are not fluffy." He reached down and seized a handful of Scout's hair, yanking him up to look him in the eyes.

"Fortunately," he continued. "I can easily fix zhat."


	12. Basic First Aid

RED Soldier currently had his nose deep in one of Medic's books. Medic himself was unconscious in one of the beds in the infirmary, and Soldier was perched next to him like a hawk. Soldier looked up and examined his, for lack of a better term, patient to make sure that he was doing everything right. Any soldier worth his salt knew basic first aid and how to handle other injuries, but this was something far out of Soldier's range of knowledge.

The medigun had already been carefully sent to Engineer to be repaired. Soldier had taken forever to peel it off of Medic's back and clean it off, trying not to get any of the poison on himself. After that, he had stripped the Medic down and washed him off in the showers before dressing him in patient clothing. Medic had woken up a few times, but he had not stayed awake for long.

Soldier turned back to the book he was reading. Let's see, patient has been washed and is in bed, an IV had been administered to replace lost fluids, now all he could do was make sure Medic rested and ate well. Simple enough. Soldier closed the book and set it aside.

Archimedes had been perching by his master in worry, but now he cooed at Soldier and flew over to the food bowl. The other doves all turned to look to see if Soldier had gotten the message.

He had.

Archimedes helped him find the bag of seed and he tipped some into the bowl for the doves. Soldier stood for a moment to admire the large fake tree that stood in the corner by the bowl. It had more branches than a normal tree and was littered with bells and swings and other toys that birds might enjoy.

Odd, he didn't remember Medic having such a thing.

He spun around when he heard a groan coming from behind and saw that Medic was waking up. Abandoning the tree for now, Soldier made his way back over to his…patient.

"Vh-vhat is…" Medic blearily looked around. He saw the blurred red figure nearby, but couldn't make out just who it was.

"Relax cupcake, it's just me." Soldier handed Medic his glasses.

"Soldat?" Medic said as he slid them on. Then his eyes narrowed. "Oh, let me guess. You are here to yell at me for not doing my job on zhe field. Vell, I have news for you, I vas-"

"Poisoned. I know." Soldier interrupted. "The Ruskie told me everything. Rest assured that this matter will be investigated. We'll find out who sabotaged Heidi!"

Oh great, now Soldier was calling it by name too.

"You are not going to yell?" Medic said incredulously. "But…but you alvays yell…"

"I've decided not to this time," Soldier said. "It wasn't your fault-"

He was rudely interrupted when Medic punched him in the face.

Of course, in Medic's weakened state, the punch had no real power behind it, but it still stung. Soldier staggered back a bit and put a hand up to his nose. No, it wasn't bleeding.

"What the hell was that for, cupcake?!" Soldier yelled.

"Just making sure zhat you veren't zhe enemy spy…"Medic said, lying back in relief.

Soldier blinked in confusion. All because he wasn't yelling?

"Who did zhis?" Medic asked, looking at the IV in his hand.

"I did!" Soldier said, puffing up with pride. Medic looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"How?" He asked. Soldier picked up a nearby book and showed Medic a diagram of how to administer an IV.

"Looked easy enough," he said, setting the book back down. "I also took a look at your medigun manual. It says if you're poisoned all you can do is wait for your body to purge it. In the meantime, you need rest and you need to eat. Speaking of which, are you hungry?"

Medic thought about it for a bit. He was still slightly nauseous, but if the book said he needed to eat, then maybe he could stomach something light. Maybe some soup or toast.

"Ja, bitte," he said. "I vould like something."

"I'll go get you something. Should be something in there for you to eat. Be right back, cupcake," Soldier said before leaving.

Medic sighed and nestled into his pillows. It was actually quite nice to have someone taking care of him instead of him taking care of someone. Soldier may not be his first choice for a caretaker, but he seemed eager enough to help Medic get better.

If only he would stop calling him 'cupcake'…

~O~

Sniper had only slightly moved from his spot outside. He had walked away to a wall that didn't have vomit all around it and decided to just stand there facing it. He knew that he was just wallowing in his misery, but he allowed it this one time. After all, he had a pretty damn good reason to be miserable.

The book was gone. Did that mean that now there was no other way to cure this? He had been very careful up until now and he always said it was pure luck that no one else had found out. How much longer would this happen? How long until someone else found out? What would they do to him if they did find out?

Sniper's thoughts were interrupted with the arrival of Scout. He looked up to see the teen looking nervous and fidgeting.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey," Sniper straightened up and turned towards him.

"So…" Scout trailed off before laughing nervously. "What a day, huh?"

Sniper swallowed the lump in his throat and forced a smile onto his face.

"Listen," he said, "I-"

"Was the BLU Spy telling the truth?" Scout interrupted. Sniper blinked in confusion.

"About what?" he asked. He had thought that Scout had been unconscious for the whole exchange.

"It was when I was awake for a little bit. The BLU Spy said that you was gonna give yourself up for me. You was gonna let yourself be taken prisoner so that I would be let go," Scout bit his lip and looked into Sniper's eyes. "Was that true?"

Sniper sighed and nodded. Scout looked down at his feet and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

"You was gonna do that for me," he said so softly that Sniper was only able to understand him because of his heightened senses. "You was gonna do that even after what I said to you…"

That was when Sniper's heart decided to reach up and punch him in the face. The universe seemed fit to screw with him over and over and all in the same day and it made Sniper want nothing more than to kill something or someone. If Scout had been able to just act like a jackass to him after the battle then Sniper would have been ok with that. It would have made it easier to shed his feelings for the younger man.

But now Scout was not only grateful, he was remorseful for what he had said. And it looked as if he would start crying soon if Sniper didn't do something. Fast.

"Look Scout, I shouldn't have…"

I shouldn't have fallen in love with you…

"I should have…"

I should have told you how I felt sooner…

"You…you shouldn't have had to see what happened between me and Medic. I should have been more careful. I'm…I'm sorry. I understand how you feel about…about that and I'll make sure that I don't…that I don't go parading it around. I will be more professional."

Scout looked up sharply and his eyes welled up with tears. Sniper stifled a whine. What had he said wrong?

"Y-you're apologizing to me?" Scout said incredulously. "I gave ya shit for something, then you turned around and saved me, and you're apologizing to me?!"

"Aint that what you wanted?" Sniper said, head tilting to the side. Scout didn't say anything as his tears fell. Sniper groaned slightly and turned around. He swiped his hat off and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He didn't notice a piece of something bloody fall and get caught again in his lower hairs.

"Look, I'm happy that you're grateful for what I did, but I would've done it for anyone. You're a teammate. It's my job to help teammates. That's why I'm classified as a support class. My job is to give support. And that's why-" He spun around and nearly recoiled when he saw that Scout was much closer now. Too close.

Scout didn't say anything, but reached up to slide Sniper's glasses off.

"You looked so scared when I saw you," he said. "So scared and angry. Like you just wanted to rip those guys apart. Was that cuz I'm a teammate?" He reached up to pull the piece of gore out of Sniper's hair. "Was that cuz I'm just a teammate?"

Sniper held his breath as Scout came close enough that his lips ghosted over Sniper's…

CRASH!

"MEDIC!"

The shout came from inside the base, but it was loud enough to startle Scout and cause him to jump back. Medic. Oh God, that's right…Medic. Scout gasped as he looked up at Sniper and then quickly looked away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I gotta go." He turned around and fled into the coming night.

Sniper shook his head slightly as he watched Scout run off. Had Scout been about to…?

"Scout!" He called. "Scout, wait-hurk!"

Sniper bent double and steadied himself against the building as pain and nausea rushed through his system. He looked behind himself to see that the sun had finally set.

"Dammit," he grunted. "Not now. Why now?"

He stumbled off to find a safe spot.

~O~

Medic knew that he was forgetting something important before he fell asleep. His fever was making it hard to think, and it was everything he could do to just focus on whatever Soldier was telling him from time to time.

Medic was woken up when he heard something scratching at the backdoor of the infirmary. Soldier was nearby with a shotgun in hand.

"Vhat is going on?" Medic asked. Soldier scowled.

"Some kind of animal is demanding entry," he said. He cocked his gun. "I'm not letting it in."

That was when Medic remembered what he had forgotten. He groaned and slapped a hand to his face.

"Herr Soldat," he said. "Let him in." Soldier looked at Medic incredulously.

"Is that fever making you crazy?" He said. "You would ask me to let a wild animal in?"

"It's hard to explain," Medic sighed. "He is not vild. Not really. Let him in, he just wants to see me."

Soldier huffed and slowly made his way to the door. He fumbled with the lock before throwing the door open and jumping back.

His jaw hit the ground when a huge wolf slunk in, looking as if it owned the place. It barely glanced at Soldier, instead making a beeline for Medic. It whimpered and laid it head on Medic's stomach.

Soldier shut the door and watched medic chuckle and pet the beast, whispering soothing German words.

"The hell is that, Doc?" He asked. The wolf looked back and growled slightly, but Medic smacked it on the head and growled something at it. The wolf whined and its tail slid between its legs.

"Zhis is, for lack of a better vord, my pet," Medic said. "His name is Volfie."

"Volfie?" Soldier repeated.

"Change zhe 'v' to a 'w'."

"Oh! Wolfie. So you own him?"

"Not quite…" Medic said, petting Wolfie again. Soldier tilted his head in confusion.

"It's hard to explain," Medic sighed. Wolfie backed up and leapt up into the bed with Medic, lying down and snuggling into the blankets.

"Don't worry about it, Doc," said Soldier. "You just go back to bed. You can explain in the morning. Just make sure that thing doesn't eat me or anything."

Wolfie growled in what sounded like indignance, but Medic just chuckled.

"He von't, I assure you. Gute Nacht, Soldat."

"Good night, Cupcake."

~O~

Sniper awoke, once again, in Medic's infirmary. The only thing that seemed new was that he awoke in Medic's arms.

Odd...

Sniper closed his eyes again and tried to move his stiff muscles. He had slept in an awkward position all night long. Still, it had been better than sleeping outside. Obviously his wolf form was smarter than he thought. Sniper sighed and debated getting up when he heard an odd sound from right above him.

He opened his eyes...

And found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun that was wielded by a very angry Soldier.


	13. Dr. Von Strudel

"Oh, fuck me," Sniper whispered, realizing seconds later that that was the worst thing he could have said. Soldier bared his teeth in a snarl.

"Speaking of which," he said. "What are you doing in this bed?"

"I..well…uh," Sniper was at a loss for words.

"Did you engage in immoral and nonconsensual fraternization with a man who, even though he isn't American, is an important member of this team?"

"What? No!" Sniper was then silenced as Soldier shoved the end of the gun into his open mouth, nearly gagging him.

"Keep your voice down!" Soldier hissed. "The Doc is asleep. And I caught you pantsless and red handed! You are going to be court martialed for this!"

Sniper discreetly tried to wake Medic up as Soldier's rant continued. If he could wake Medic then everything could be explained…

Sniper slowly moved his hand and pinched Medic's side.

"Ow! I'm avake…" Medic said sleepily. He opened his eyes and sat up with a yawn. Soldier didn't take his eyes off of Sniper as Medic put on his glasses and took in the sight that was happening in bed.

"Vas is-oh, ficken. I had meant to sneak you out before Herr Soldat voke up…" Medic muttered.

"Sneak him out? This was a consensual fraternization?"

"Fratern-" Medic's face became very stern. "Herr Soldat, are you implying zhat Herr Sniper and I had sex?"

"I woke up to find this piece of scum naked and draped over you in your bed. What was I supposed to think?" Soldier said. Medic sighed and shoved the shotgun away.

"Herr Sniper, put on some clothes, bitte. Herr Soldat, sit down and I vill try to explain zhis."

~O~

Meanwhile, at the BLU base…

BLU Engineer was on his way to the infirmary. Their Scout hadn't returned that night and he wasn't in either his room or the respawn room. This had Engineer worried that maybe the REDs had caught him or maybe he was still injured and out on the field. While the BLU Medic wasn't the most hospitable of the BLU mercenaries, he was the one who always seemed to know what was going on.

Engineer knew that this irritated Spy to hell and back.

So if Scout was missing, Medic would undoubtedly know what had happened.

Engineer slowed down as he neared the infirmary.

Something was different…

He could hear Medic's voice and it was…happy. He was crooning and laughing at something. It sounded like he was talking to one of his pets.

But Spion's name did not pop up.

Neither did the names of any serial killers.

Engineer shook his head slightly and opened the door to the infirmary. He had just enough time to see Medic feeding a carrot to something before whatever it was let out a frightened yelp and dove under an infirmary bed.

"Ach!" Medic looked around and spotted Engineer. "You scared him!" He got down on his hands and knees and began trying to coax the thing out from under the bed.

"What are you talking about? Did you take in some animal from the field again?" Engineer asked, walking further into the room.

Medic's head appeared above the bed.

"You could say zhat," he said.

And then he disappeared again.

Engineer raised an eyebrow as he studied the remains of the carrot. Spion and a few starlings were curiously nibbling on it.

"A carrot…" Engineer said slowly. "You took in a bunny?"

Medic's head appeared again.

"You could say zhat," he said with a grin that Engineer did not like.

Then his head disappeared again.

Engineer sighed in irritation and crossed his arms.

"Have you seen Scout?" He asked.

Appear.

"Ja, I have."

Disappear.

Engineer grit his teeth at the resulting silence.

"Could you tell me what happened to him?"

Appear.

"Ja, I could."

Disappear.

Engineer felt his patience wearing thin at the attitude of the Medic. This man had been hired to help them, dammit. He was a support class.

And yet only the animals ever got his support.

"He vas in such bad shape last night," Medic continued, not even bothering to look up this time. "I took care of him." Engineer grit his teeth and stomped over to the bed. He reached down and grabbed the back of Medic's neck in fury.

"Now listen here-" he began.

But then he was suddenly in the air right before he was slammed to the ground. Medic had an arm twisted behind his back and looked down at him with a deadly glare.

"I zhought zhat I had mentioned zhat I do not like to be touched several times before. Did you forget, Herr Engineer?" Medic growled.

Literally growled.

Engineer tried to turn his head to glance up, but was distracted by what he was now able to see under the bed.

It looked like Scout, but he prayed that it wasn't.

"What the hell is that thing?" Engineer said as Medic slowly let him up.

"Zhat is who you have been looking for," Medic said. "It's Scout. Come on, little one. Come on…"

The thing under the bed slowly came out and Engineer nearly screamed.

It was as if Scout had merged with a rabbit.

He had bunny ears, a bunny nose, whiskers, his arms ended in paws, and his legs were twisted to make him hunch over and walk on all fours. His pants rode low on his hips to reveal a fluffy bunny tail, and he had patches of fur all over.

"What the hell did you do to him?" Engineer shouted as he recoiled and backed away. Scout flinched at his harsh tone and turned to go back under the bed, but Medic picked him up and carried him to another bed. He set Scout down with surprising tenderness and handed him a carrot to nibble on.

"Please be a bit quieter," he said, turning back around. "He scares easily."

Engineer huffed.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" He asked.

"Relax," Medic waved dismissively. "It's temporary. And our superiors really have no qualms about who I experiment on."

"This aint no experiment!" Engineer shouted, startling Scout. "This is a human being and a valuable member of our team! You can't just go about mutating people-"

"Said zhe man vizh zhe metal hand. Did you not ask me to cut it off for you so zhat you could use your little prosthetic?" Medic said with a dangerous gleam in his eye.

"That's different! I did it to myself, not someone else! And anyway, I can still build with this. How is Scout going to snatch intelligence like this?"

"And vhat kind of men are ve to rely on him to do zhat?" Medic continued calmly, rubbing Scout's bare back in a comforting way. "Ve are men. Ve have legs. Good, strong, vorking legs. Vhat is stopping anozher of us from taking zhe intel? Anyvay today ve are capturing points."

"We are capturing points. You hafta stay here cuz the RED Medic can't fight today. Those are the rules, but now I hafta go tell the Administrator that the Scouts can't fight either!" Engineer snarled in frustration. Medic grinned and shrugged.

"Go ahead," he said. "You know how much zhe Administrator loves my vork."

Engineer said nothing as he turned around and left.

~O~

Soldier crossed his arms and stared from underneath his helmet.

"You're a werewolf…" he said. Sniper fidgeted and shrugged.

"I guess. I mean, that's the closest I can come to naming it-"

"Well, why didn't you say do before? You know you're not supposed to keep this kind of stuff secret!" Soldier huffed. "It's a matter of safety."

"Vait…" Medic said slowly. "You believe us? You believe zhat he really is a verevolf?"

"Of course!" Soldier shrugged. "When I was in the army, I fought alongside a vampire, slept beside an incubus (he was always trying to steal my body fluids), and one of the nurses was a jorogumo."

Medic raised an eyebrow at that. Did Soldier really believe that?

"Besides, I'm not as stupid as you think. You go to sleep with a wolf and wake up with a man in your bed? Something magical happened there."

Medic and Sniper shared a look.

"But I do have to know…" Soldier continued, straightening to his full height and puffing out his chest. "Is there any fraternization going on between you two?"

Medic scoffed and glared. Sniper did the same.

"No," Medic snapped. "Ve are friends. Nozhing more."

It might have been Medic's imagination, but Soldier seemed to sigh in relief at that. But just barely.

"OK, then this discussion is over for now," Soldier concluded.

"Wait," Sniper said, "you aren't going to tell are you?"

"There's a code of honor amongst men in arms," said Soldier. "I won't be telling so long as this is not a threat. The Doc seems to think that you're harmless and he's a smart man, so I will be keeping quiet…for now. Now then, Doc I already informed the bigwigs that you are unable to fight today-"

"I am just fine!" Medic snapped. He actually wasn't, but he sure as hell was not going to sit out a fight after being no help yesterday.

"Oh really? Then let's see you walk in a straight line." Soldier stood back to observe.

"Fine." Medic slowly stood up and placed his feet on the floor. His legs protested as he put weight on them, but he ignored it and pushed off from the bed. He shakily managed to walk some distance and turned to smirk at Soldier, but then his legs decided that they had had enough and medic crumbled.

Two strong arms caught him and Medic looked up to see Soldier frowning at him.

"See? If you can't walk in a line then you can't run across a field to heal us," he said. Medic sighed and groaned softly as Soldier helped him back into bed. "As for you, Fido," Soldier turned to Sniper. "You are going to need to gives us two hundred percent to make up for the Doc. I'll be letting the Frog know that he needs to bring more too."

Sniper glanced at Medic and mouthed 'Fido'. Medic shrugged, but Soldier didn't notice.

Soldier was interrupted when the phone rang. He dismissed himself and went to answer it.

"He's calling me 'Fido' now?" Sniper said quietly.

"He has a name for everyone," Medic answered. "It could be much vorse."

"How-" But Medic shushed him when Soldier came back.

"I have just been informed that the BLU Scout is unable to fight," he said. "More than likely that BLU Nazi refused to heal him after the beating I gave him yesterday." Soldier grinned evilly. "According to the rules of engagement, our own Scout will not be participating in this fight, so now we are down two men. Well, one man and one boy. Fido, come with me. I'll brief the Scout and have him watch Dr. Von Strudel during the battle."

"I don't need- vait, vhat did you call me?" Medic said. Sniper put a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

"Dr. Von Strudel!" said Soldier. "I was just going to keep calling you cupcake, but you Germans don't have cupcakes, you have Strudel. And you're always putting 'von' in your name ("'von' means you have royal blood," Medic muttered), and you're a doctor! So I'm going to call you 'Dr. Von Strudel' now. Like it?" Medic stopped muttering to himself and looked up to see looking at him like a puppy wanting praise for fetching a pair of slippers. Medic sighed and nodded.

"Ja," he forced a smile. "It's very good."

"Great! Cuz it took me all night to come up with. Anyway, Fido, let's go. We have a lot to discuss with the team." Soldier saluted Medic and then marched out of the infirmary.

Sniper finally let his laugh out in the form of a chuckle.

"You know," he said, "'Fido' don't sound so bad now."

Medic's response was to smack Sniper with a pillow.

~O~

BLU Medic hummed to himself as he gathered the extra blankets and pillows from the infirmary closet. Scout had been digging around in hopes of making a burrow, but had been confused at the hard floor. Medic closed the door and hefted the load of linens into his arms before heading back into the infirmary.

Scout looked up as Medic entered and pawed at the ground again. He yelped slightly when Medic dropped the linens next him, but then excitedly began to paw through them. Medic smiled softly and then went over to the window to call in his Starlings. He had put respawn chips in them, but he still didn't like them flying outside during battles.

A great whoosh of black feathers later, Medic closed and locked the window. The battle would be starting soon, but he wasn't too worried. The infirmary was on the top floor and any control points were nowhere near it. He would be just fine waiting in the base while those morons dies a thousand times outside. The team had barely blinked when Engineer had announced that medic would be unable to fight, but they had erupted in an uproar at the news of Scout's new look.

If Medic hadn't already established himself as someone you didn't want to mess with he would have to sleep with one eye open tonight.

Scout poked his head out of his new burrow and made a few happy noises. Medic's Starlings were all flitting about in their birdbaths. Spion was skittering around Medic's desk.

Medic smiled and sighed happily.

An empty base with just his pets for company?

Medic was in paradise.


	14. Confessions and Comfort

RED Sniper looked through his scope and tailed the BLU Demo before firing off a headshot.

'DO YOU LOVE HIM?'

Sniper blinked and leaned back a bit. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses and sniffed.

"Who?" He asked out loud.

'OLD MATE. DO YOU LOVE HIM?'

Sniper resumed his position and began looking for another target. Without their Scout the BLUs didn't seem to know what to do. It was painfully obvious how much they relied on him. The REDs had managed to come up with a strategy that made up for the two missing members, and they were doing rather well.

"Well," Sniper fired another shot and scowled when he missed. "I wouldn't say 'love', but I am fond of him."

'YOU RISKED YOUR LIFE FOR HIM. EVEN AFTER HE REJECTED YOU.'

"And I would do it again," said Sniper. "I would do it all over again."

~O~

RED Scout kicked off from the wall and zoomed across the infirmary in Medic's rolling chair yet again. He had been doing it repeatedly for a while now, and was still bored out of his mind.

"Herr Scout," Medic said, lowering his book. "You do not have to stay in here viz me if you don't vant to."

Scout paused, digging his feet into the ground to stop the chair.

"Soldier will kill me if I leave. He told me so himself. It was weird, you'd think he was asking me to guard some priceless treasure for him…" Scout mused to himself. Medic sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Zhat man has been treating me like glass ever since zhe battle yesterday."

Scout wrung his hands together nervously and bit his lip. This was it, they were on the subject, they were alone, and Medic was too weak to really give him a beating.

It was now or never.

"Actually Doc…I wanted to talk to you about that…" Scout said. Medic looked up in interest and set his book aside as Scout came to sit on the bed next to him.

"Um…promise you won't get mad," Scout said.

"I promise," Medic said casually.

"Say it in German," Scout countered. He had heard before that if Medic promised in German then he would abide by it more.

"Ich verspreche es," Medic corrected. What could Scout possibly have to talk about-

"I sabotaged your gun," Scout bit out as fast as he could.

Medic narrowed his eyes in confusion. His hearing must be getting affected by all the blasts of battle because there was no way that Scout had just said that.

"Speak up a bit," he said. "I don't zhink I heard you correctly-"

"I. SABOTAGED. YOUR. GUN!" Scout shouted in a burst of emotion. He watched apprehensively as Medic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes they positively radiated with ice.

"Vhat do you mean?" He asked. Scout gulped started fidgeting with his hat.

"I…I cut the hose on your gun." He said. Medic's glare dropped about ten more degrees and he reached out to grab Scout as he started to back up.

"Vhy?" Oh, Scout had never heard so much anger in one word.

Well except maybe once or twice before with his mom, but that was cuz he shaved the neighbor's cat as a joke or broke some kid's arm at school.

Well, he was already in trouble so he might as well tell the truth.

"I was…I was just so mad at you…" Scout said more to the floor than to Medic. "Cuz you and Sniper are together and I-"

"Vait. One. Moment," Medic bit out. He narrowed his eyes and snarled. "All of zhis happened because you zhought zhat Sniper and I are a couple?"

"Well, yeah," said Scout. "You are, aint you?"

There was a beat of silence and then Medic started whacking Scout with one of his pillows.

"Hey, hey!" Scout shouted.

"Dumm, dumm, dumm Jungen!" Medic shouted. "Das alles hätte vermieden werden können, wenn Sie nicht so dumm!"

"I can't understand you!" Scout jumped out of range and dodged the pillow again.

"Sniper and I are not a couple!" Medic snarled. Scout's eyes widened in confusion.

"But…but he's been sleeping here and-and I heard you two…"

"I am helping him viz a serious medical problem," Medic said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"But those noises…"

"Not zhat zhey are any of your business, but I once helped him by massaging his sore muscles. He vas returning zhe favor viz his own massage."

There was another beat of silence.

"So…you two aint fags together?" Scout said. He yelped and dodged the book that Medic threw at him.

"You had best find anozher vord for zhat. I vill not stand such intolerance from you. In fact, I vould have taught you a lesson vhen you first degraded Herr Sniper."

"I was angry!" Scout defended.

"Vhat is so bad about Sniper being viz anozher man?" Medic asked.  
"Because I want him to be with me!" Scout gasped and covered his mouth while Medic looked stunned.

"You…you're a homosexual as vell?" Medic asked. Scout lowered his hand and turned away, ashamed.

"I see," Medic continued. "You are ashamed of it. Zhere is nozhing to be ashamed about. You are still as human as any ozher man on zhis base. "

"You don't get it!" Scout shouted. "Where I come from, you get killed if you're a fa-if you're gay. My own brothers…" He trailed off and Medic looked on with a worried look. "It just aint something I wanna be. You don't know what it's like to be afraid of yourself. You don't know what it's like to suffer cuz of this."

"Oh, don't I?" Medic said. Scout looked back at him in confusion as Medic rolled up the sleeve and revealed a tattoo. It was an inverted pink triangle and a series of numbers. Scout's eyes widened as he realized just what it was.

"I am a homosexual as vell," Medic said softly. "I suffered greatly for it and saw many ozhers die because of it. I vas zhere. I saw zhem die, I disposed of zheir corpses, I knew zhat I could be zhe next one. I was lucky, zhough. I managed to survive until ve vere liberated. Aftervwards, I vanted to change myself. I vanted to to be "normal", but I couldn't be. And zhen something happened."

Scout inched back over, interested in Medic's story.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I told my mutter vhat vas going on. Bless her, she had been living elsewhere and vasn't exposed to zhe horrors. She said to me 'Josef, I am ashamed of you. You vant to change yourself after you survived zhose years of torture because of an ignorant society? You vant to be vhat zhose monsters deemed normal? You should be proud. You are a man like every ozher, and you vant to live like a coward. You vant to fit into zhe mold zhat zhose beasts created. You should vear your mark viz pride. Zhey tried to break you, but you stood tall and strong and refused to submit. Be proud of who you are son, and don't ever let anyone try to change you.'"

"Yeesh," Scout chuckled. "She sounds like my Ma."

Medic chuckled too.

"I suppose, but she made a very good point and I did feel ashamed after zhat talk. I realized zhat she had been completely right. Vhy should I try to live to anozher's standards? Vhy should I allow zhose Nazi's to control me? So I decided zhat I vould just live. I vouldn't try to change, I vouldn't vorry over myself, I vouldn't hate zhe zhings I felt. I vould just live and to hell viz anyone who didn't like it."

Scout fidgeted again and Medic pulled his sleeve back down.

"I dunno if I can do it, Doc," Scout finally said.

"You can," Medic said. "It vill be hard, and it may hurt, but you can. Now zhen, after zhis fight you need to go talk to Sniper. He has been very vorried about you. He misses you."

"Misses me?" Scout repeated.

"More zhan you know…" Medic smiled.

~O~

BLU Engineer scowled behind his sentry as he watched his team get pushed back from a point. It just showed how much they relied on their Scout. They always had a plan that two would take out any REDs while Scout raced in and capped. When the point was theirs, they would move on to the next.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

But there was no Scout today, and the team suffered for it. They were well enough without a Medic as they barely used him in the first place, but missing a Scout pretty much doomed them from the start. Engineer watched as the BLU Heavy was blown up by the RED Demo, causing the BLU Pyro to retreat and regroup.

Damn that Medic…

Engineer looked back at the BLU base, wishing every horrible death on the Medic that he could. Him and those flea bags he had as pets. Those diseased rats, that walking dinner, and the abomination. They were all he cared about. Well, someone should show Medic what happens when you screw your team over.

A nearby commotion startled Engineer back to reality. Something was happening down yonder and it sounded bad. Cocking his gun, Engineer followed it and found…his answer.

It was a deactivated RED sentry.

A battered sapper was on the ground nearby, but there was no Engineer attending it. Something had obviously happened to him that prevented him from repairing his sentry.

Well, that suited the BLU Engineer just fine.

He smiled maliciously to himself and began to carefully pack up the sentry.


	15. Friendly Fire

BLU Spy watched RED Sniper from afar, listening for anything that he might could use. The bushman was talking to himself, and yet it sounded as though he were talking to someone else. Spy knew better than to strike again after the fiasco from the previous day (which gave him the worst nightmares that night) so he decided to lie low and see if he could overhear anything that would help. He knew there was no way they would win today, as their Engineer had been only too kind to point out. So what was the point in dirtying his hands and his suit when he could use this time to spy?

Sniper's conversation had changed topics. He was talking about…food. How odd.

"Do you always tear into things like you did yesterday with that Spook?" Sniper asked, bringing his scope back up to his eye. Spy paused and his eyes grew wide.

Was Sniper….

Was he talking to the wolf somehow?

"Cuz I gotta say, mate that must have been a sight to see. I mean, I didn't come to til after but the corpses…there wasn't much left."

Oh, so he was talking to the wolf. Hmm…maybe Spy could use this somehow.

"You'd love it back home, mate. So much to hunt. What? Well, I suppose rabbit's good, but is that really what you want? Yeah, I know you haven't hunted and probably want to, but rabbit? Oh, a snack you say."

There! That was what Spy needed. The wolf wanted rabbit and Spy could use that as bait. But where could he get a rabbit? Spy thought for a moment and then grinned.

Oh, but didn't Medic have a perfectly good rabbit he could use?

~O~

RED Soldier made sure to stay near the base as he blasted at anything that had so much as a speck of blue on it. It helped that there was a point nearby that he could pretend to defend. He glanced back at the RED base as if he had x-ray vision and could see just what was going on behind those walls. He hoped that Medic was feeling better. He also hoped that Scout was taking good care of him.

If he wasn't then two hundred pushups should teach him to listen to instructions.

Soldier snorted and turned back to the battle, launching a rocket at a group of advancing BLUs. The fight was almost over. RED had captured two BLU points and BLU had yet to capture any RED. Well, that's what those sissies got for relying on their Scout so much. Soldier knew the importance of being prepared and as such had made sure to school his teammates in exercises that covered fighting while short a man or two. There was a brief gib shower and Soldier smiled as he glanced back once again at the RED base.

He really hoped that Dr. Von Strudel was feeling better.

~O~

BLU Spy was busy plotting when he happened upon an odd sight. The BLU Engineer was busy repairing a RED sentry. Spy stopped and narrowed his eyes slightly. A RED sentry? What could he be hoping to do with it. It was common knowledge that all sentries lacked a friendly fire setting so he couldn't use it.

Unless the Engineer's target wasn't RED…

"What are you doing?" Spy asked. Engineer looked up briefly before turning back to the sentry.

"Nothing."

"Zhat doesn't look like 'nothing.'" Spy replied. Engineer looked up with a scowl.

"I mean that it's none of your business." Spy scoffed and looked up at the BLU base.

Ah hell, already his plan had a snag.

The infirmary was on the top floor so unless the wolf could climb it would not be going after Scout anytime soon. Spy needed to find a way to get the Medic onto the ground floor so that he would bring Scout with him. Well, that was nearly impossible. Medic rarely left his infirmary and wouldn't move unless something happened to it. Maybe if it was damaged somehow. Oh, but the BLU base was built very strongly and it would take a lot of fire power to be able to damage it enough.

But where could Spy find enough fire power?

There was a mumbled curse and clang behind him and Spy slowly smiled as a plan hatched in his head. That sentry was only a level two, but if Engineer upgraded it…

"Engineer," Spy said, lighting a cigarette, "You wouldn't 'appen to be planning on using zhat sentry on a particular RED, are you?"

"I told you that it's none of your business," Engineer said, not looking up from his work.

"Of course," Spy continued. "I'm sure it's a good plan. If it were me, 'owever, I would go about it a bit differently." He snuck a glance back and saw that Engineer had perked up if only slightly. "First, I would perform a longer distance attack so as to not implicate myself. I am sure zhat zhe rest of zhe team would avenge zhe attack."

"I highly doubt that," Engineer muttered. Ah, well who else on BLU was as hated as the Medic? This was perfect. With any luck the Engineer would take care of all the dirty work for Spy.

"Zhen you would at least not get caught by our superiors," Spy continued. "Second, I wouldn't attack zhe RED 'imself, but instead attack zhat which 'e loves zhe most. If it were 'is possessions, zhen I would blow up 'is room. If it were anozher person, zhen I would attack zhem." Spy paused to glance behind once more and could almost see the gears in Engineer's head turning. "A level trois sentry would be perfect for a long range attack, and it would penetrate zhe walls of zhe RED base quite easily. Granted…zhat is what I would do." Engineer looked up to see Spy giving him a knowing smirk.

"That does sound like a plan, but I aint stupid. You know who I'm going after, don't you? So why would you help me at all?" Engineer asked. Spy merely shrugged and stomped out his cigarette.

"Because we have a mutual enemy. And if I were you, I would hit soon. Zhink about it, 'e as well as 'is pets are all tucked away in zhe infirmary. Zhey are practically gift wrapped for you. You are not going to get zhis opportunity again." The Spy straightened his tie and slinked off to rejoin the battle. Engineer thought it over for a moment before walking off to find more scrap metal for an upgrade.

~O~

BLU Medic watched amused as Scout curiously pawed at Spion. Spion, to his credit, was being patient with the Scout and even snapped back playfully. The birds were all scattered around, and Medic was at peace. It was just him and his pets which was just how he liked it. He watched Spion scuttle away and Scout came over to sniff at him and gnaw on the fingers of his right hand. Medic smiled and allowed Scout to continue (he was left handed) as he filled out a medical report on the BLU Soldier.

His faithful Lizzie came to sit on his shoulder and another bird, Erzsebet, came to sit on the desk next to his hand. Medic paused to pet both of them and picked his pen up again. After a few minutes, the birds became bored and flew off.

Medic started to hum softly for a bit, content in his own little world that was far away from the other men of his team. Where it was just him and his pets. Where he was with the ones whom he knew would never hurt him.

Not like they did. No, never like they did.

Medic's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a loud sound from outside. Odd, the battle shouldn't be anywhere nearby. He looked out the window and his eyes grew wide when he saw four rockets heading straight for the infirmary.

Medic let reflex take over as he dove to cover Scout when the rockets hit.

He was knocked unconscious as an explosion ripped the infirmary apart.

He was back in his room. His cold, dark room in a house that held no love for him.

His parents were gone. Again. Working late at the hospital.

He sighed sadly and walked out to the sitting room. A tea set sat on the table.

He didn't dare touch it.

He walked into the foyer. The door was shut and locked.

He didn't dare look out. People were mistaking him for a ghost.

His parents knew better.

His uncle was not coming today. Thank God for small comforts.

He heard a bark and smiled widely as a small Daschund waddled up to him.

He sank to his knees and giggled as Alfred licked his face and wagged his tail.

He was always so happy to see his little master.

Then he opened his mouth and screeched.

And screeched.

AND SCREECHED!

Medic woke up on his stomach with a screeching Scout sitting next to him. He hurt all over, but his back felt like it was on fire. Everything seemed muffled or blurred, but he could make out the panicked sounds of his birds.

God, his back really burned.

Medic closed his eyes and adjusted his glasses, willing himself to move through the pain.

Then…he smelled something burning. Something that he used to smell in crematoriums…

Oh…so that's why his back burned.

Medic flopped over onto his back to extinguish the flame and could now see what used to be a wall. The blast had done quite a bit of damage to the infirmary.

But wait…

Where were his pets.

Medic sat up, ignoring the pain and looked around for his pets. Bloody corpses of half his birds littered the floor while a few other birds flopped around in agony. Medic stifled a sob, jumped up, and staggered to his medigun. He turned the healing beam on his birds and was dismayed when only a few were healed and flew away. Scout looked a little battered, but the medigun soothed him enough to calm him down. Medic then looked around for Spion. He dug through the debris and gasped when he finally found a half crushed crab. Fighting back tears, he healed Spion and then put him over next to Scout. Medic, now gasping in pain, finally inhaled the fumed of his gun and sighed in relief. He looked over at his dead birds and felt tears fall from his eyes. He had been smart to put respawn chips in them, they would respawn just fine in a bit, but still to see their corpses was too much for Medic. Sobbing now, he gently picked up each body and set it in an undamaged area. He counted the bodies and then did a recount of the healed ones.

Someone was missing…

At that moment, Medic heard a faint chirp.

A very familiar chirp.

It was his dear Lizzie.

Like a madman possessed, Medic tore through the debris.

"Hold on, Lizzie!" He cried. "Just hold on!" He heard another chirp and continued digging.

Then he stopped.

He stopped moving.

He stopped breathing.

His Lizzie lay chirping softly on the ground before him. She was bleeding. She was missing a wing. She was in pain. Medic wiped away his tears and fumbled for his medigun, which he had put down to dig. He carefully took Lizzie in his hand and fired up the gun.

"It's ok, Lizzie, it's ok. I've got you now. You'll be ok." The blue fumes waved over Lizzie, and Medic expected her to regrow her wing and heal just fine.

But she didn't.

She lay still in his hand. She didn't move. She didn't chirp. She was dead.

The medigun slid from Medic's numb fingers. He brought Lizzie up to his chest and cradled her there. He had no breath to cry. He had no breath to shout. He had no breath to howl in misery. He just held her and let his tears fall.

"Doktor!" The BLU Heavy appeared in the doorway with the rest of his team behind him. They had all come to see what had happened, and instead had stumbled upon this private moment. Heavy spotted the kneeling Medic that was clutching a bloody bundle to his chest and crying over it.

"Doktor?" he asked. He walked into the infirmary and spotted the Scout burrowing back into his blankets. He turned back to the Doktor and reached out to him.

"Doktor, are you-"

"Leave," he heard the strained voice of the Medic say. Heavy's hand faltered.

"Doktor-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Medic looked up and shouted, looking like a wrathful demon. The team didn't need to be told twice as they all stumbled back down the stairs, leaving the Medic alone in the carnage of his infirmary.

~O~

"Yo Snipes! What happened?" RED Scout asked as Sniper entered the RED infirmary. Medic looked up from his book in interest.

"Dunno," Sniper shrugged. "Something blew up the BLU infirmary so the fight was cut short. We were winning too. Now we gotta start all over with the next fight."

"That sucks on ice," Scout groaned. "Well, at least you got the rest of the day off now. And at least I don't hafta watch grandpa here no more."

Medic threw a pillow at Scout as Soldier walked through the door.

"How are you feeling, Dr. Von Strudel?" He asked. Scout snickered at the nickname, but stopped at Medic's glare.

"I am feeling fine, Herr Soldat," he said with a smile. "I should be able to fight in zhe next battle viz no problem."

"Good!" Soldier said, moving to sit on the bed next to Medic.

"Hey, Snipes," Scout suddenly said, looking nervous. "I need to talk to you."

"What's wrong, mongrel?" Sniper asked. Scout nodded his head at the door and led Sniper out into the hall.

"Let's talk in my room. Don't need the other fellas overhearing us," he said. Sniper's brows furrowed.

"What?" He asked in confusion.

Scout shoved Sniper into his room and shut the door behind him.

"What's this all about, then?" Sniper asked, slightly annoyed at Scout's antics.

"I really needed to talk to you," Scout said. "It's important."

Sniper shrugged and gestured for Scout to go ahead. Scout bit his lip nervously.

"We…we had a big misunderstanding. I thought you was bonking Medic so I got mad at you. The Doc told me that you aint bonking him, but I don't think you know why I got mad. It wasn't cuz you're gay."

Sniper crossed his arms and tilted his head in confusion.

"But you said-"  
"I know what I said!" Scout snapped. "But you misunderstood me like I did the situation. I wasn't mad cuz you're gay."

"Then why were you so mad that you had to punch me and yell at me?" Sniper said irritably. Scout sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Why did this have to be so damn hard?

"It was cuz…cuz…" He couldn't get the words out. He swallowed and tried again, but the words still stuck in his throat. Sniper watched Scout aptly, waiting to see what Scout would say. Scout continued to struggle and Sniper began to worry. He rested a hand on Scout's shoulder in a comforting gesture.

"Hey you can tell me anything, alright?" He said softly.

Scout stammered again, and finally groaned in defeat. He looked up at Sniper with a look of determination.

And then he pressed his lips against Sniper's.

Sniper's eyes widened and he jumped back, shocked at what had just happened. Scout looked on in fear, thinking that maybe he had gone too far. Maybe Sniper hadn't forgiven him yet.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't-I'll just-"

But then Sniper kissed him. Scout groaned softly and kissed back with fervor. Sniper's lips were dry and chapped, and tasted a bit like coffee. It was the greatest taste that Scout had ever known. Scout's hands left his sides and tentatively went up to grip Sniper's shoulders. Sniper's own hands snuck around Scout's waist. The kiss broke and the two just looked at each other blankly.

"So…" Scout broke the silence. "What does that make us now?" Sniper chuckled a bit.

"I dunno," he said, "but while I'm thinking about it…" He kissed Scout again, and the Bostonian kissed back.

~O~

BLU Heavy pushed the food around on his plate and he looked up at his team. Well, it was almost his team.

Someone was missing.

The Medic hadn't been seen or heard ever since the BLUs had got back. No one had bothered checking on Medic for some reason. No one had even dared going up to inform him of their strategy meeting. Heavy couldn't really blame the German. Obviously something bad had happened to spook him and cause him to react like he had, but Heavy had no way of knowing. He got up slowly from the table.

"Where you off to, Heavy?" Engineer asked.  
"Am going to check on Doktor," Heavy said. Engineer scowled and the rest of the team looked at Heavy incredulously.

"Just leave him alone, Heavy. He obviously don't want any of us up there with him. Let him stew in his own juices for today. Maybe then he'll learn to appreciate us a bit more than he usually does," he said. Heavy snorted angrily.

"Doktor is credit to team. You just don't know because you hate Doktor. Well, I am going to check on Doktor like teammate should!" Heavy turned and left without another word. He angrily stomped up the stairs up to the infirmary, feeling a strong breeze emanating from it. The door was still open, and the Medic was still inside.

There were piles of dust and debris, and broken items had been moved or thrown into a box. Obviously, Medic had been trying to clean up, but that's not what Heavy noticed the most.

Medic was sitting in the middle of the room and clutching his beloved birds and Spion to him. Heavy could name all of Medic's birds by heart because of his interest in the real people they were named after. They were Erzsebet, Locusta, Atilla, Behram, Damastes, Agrippina, Sawney, Silus, Samson, and of course Lizzie. Heavy heard Medic muttering in German and he saw a nearby broom that looked as if it had been tossed aside. Heavy gasped when he saw what was in the pile next to it.

Bloody black feathers.

Heavy had no doubt just where those feathers had come from, and he suddenly understood what the bloody bundle had been earlier. Medic's emotional response made sense now, and Heavy could not blame him.

Medic looked up as Heavy picked up the broom, revealing a tear streaked face with wide eyes.

Heavy smiled warmly, hoping to extend some comfort to Medic.

"Thought you could use help cleaning, Doktor," he said. He then began to sweep.

Had Heavy been looking at Medic, he would have seen the small smile that graced Medic's lips as he clutched his beloveds closer to him.


	16. Confusion

"So you really are feeling better?" RED Soldier asked. Medic smiled as he tipped the birds seed into the bowls for his doves.

"Ja, I am feeling much better. Don't vorry, you don't have to vatch me anymore," Medic turned back to his birds, missing the crestfallen look on Soldier's face. Soldier looked around for something, anything to use as an excuse to stay, but could find none.

"Alright then, Dr. Von Strudel," he sighed. Medic turned around, brow furrowed in confusion. Did Soldier sound sad about that? Medic could hear the almost defeated tone Soldier had used and saw him almost slumped over as he turned to exit the infirmary.

Lost license or no, Medic was still a very smart man. He had caught all of Soldier's odd behaviors towards him. He had noticed Soldier's protectiveness and applauded his willing to step out of his zone of duty to help him. He remembered Soldier's rage when he went to save him from the BLUs and he remembered the tender care that Soldier had extended towards him in his time of sickness.

Medic hadn't wanted to believe it, but perhaps Soldier wanted to be a bit more than commanding officer to Medic. If he didn't then Medic could at least humor him and let him stay.

Without letting Soldier know that Medic had caught on to him.

"Herr Soldat," Medic said. Soldier perked up and turned around with a hopeful smile.

"Your voice sounds a little odd," Medic continued, striding across the room. "Is your throat sore?"

Soldier rarely caught sore throats. Years of yelling had nearly fortified it into iron that refused to fall prey to any kind of bacteria.

"No," Soldier said in confusion, "why do you ask?"

Medic didn't reply. Instead he pulled out a small flashlight and opened Soldier's mouth to examine the back of his throat.

"Your throat looks razher…inflamed," He mused (lied). "I shall have to do a test to see if you are getting sick viz strep throat." He walked over to his cabinets and began rummaging around for the necessary items. Soldier poked his neck in confusion and then felt his head for a fever. He didn't feel sick.

"Here ve are," Medic said, walking back over with a few things. "Open your mouth as wide as you can. Oh, and try not to vomit."

Soldier obeyed and gagged as a tongue depressor smashed his tongue down and a long cotton swab tickled the back of his throat. Both items left his mouth and he swallowed and coughed as he fought the urge to dry heave.

"Very good," Medic said, now streaking an agar plate with the swab. He closed it and labeled it. "Zhis vill need to incubate for at least eighteen hours and I don't vant you out zhere until I can tell if you are contagious or not. I am afraid zhat you vill have to stay here for zhe night." He set the plate in an incubator, just missing Soldier's big grin.

~O~

"So…" Scout leaned against Sniper as he sat on his bed. "Made your mind up yet?"

Sniper wrapped an arm around Scout and kissed the top of his head.

"I'd love to see where this goes," he said. "I dunno how the heads feel about relationships so we'll hafta keep this secret. I dunno if I love you yet, but I am fond of you. I care about you."

"You don't love me?" Scout asked. He sat up and looked angry.

"You can't love someone you don't know," Sniper said. "Maybe I do love you, but I don't want to call it that until I'm sure. I don't want to hurt you. Let's take it slow and get to know each other. Then we'll see what's what."

"I guess I can understand that," Scout said, his expression softening. "I just thought that relationships like this were different."

"Nah," Sniper chuckled, bringing Scout close again. "It's just like between a bloke and sheila. We're gonna go on dates. I'm gonna pay for your movie tickets and your meals. I'm gonna buy you flowers and jewelry and always lie when you ask if those pants make you look fat-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Scout objected, sitting up again. "That's stuff you do for a girl! You saying I'm the girl in this relationship?" Sniper took a moment to seem like he was thinking hard before he shrugged.

"Well, I'm obviously the bloke so you must be the sheila," he said. Scout growled and lunged at Sniper, knocking them both off the bed and onto the floor. Sniper easily flipped him over and put him in a submission hold. Scout groaned and struggled, but Sniper held fast.

"Still think you aren't the shelia?" Sniper asked playfully. Scout smiled despite himself.

"I aint no girl," he said. Sniper chuckled and let him up. They both sat back against the bed.

"Then I guess we're both the blokes," Sniper said, ruffling Scout's hair. "But I'm gonna spoil you rotten."

Scout pecked Sniper on the lips.

"Sounds good," he said.

~O~

BLU Spy quickly made his way through the destroyed infirmary. Medic had stepped out to dispose of some debris and would be back soon. Spy hoped to be gone by that time. He rummaged through a box of salvaged medicines and found what he was looking for.

Sleeping pills.

Spy momentarily debated with taking the whole bottle, wondering if Medic was keeping everything recorded or not. He settled for dumping a small amount into his hand and pocketing them before screwing the cap back on the bottle and tossing it back into the box.

He cloaked when he heard a noise on the stairs and silently slipped out right after Medic entered.

~O~

"I had a Schnauzer vhen I still lived in Germany," RED Medic said. "It vas very dear to me. Such a good dog."

"I had a real American dog," Soldier proclaimed proudly, pounding a fist to his chest. "It was an American Pit Bull Terrier."

"I heard about zhose," Medic mused, pausing in his writing. "Zhey vere used in zhe first var, ja? Zhere vas one in particular… Sergeant Stubble?"

"Sgt. Stubby," Soldier corrected. "He was a true American dog. He did his duty without a bark of complaint!"

There talk was interrupted as the door opened and Sniper and Scout walked through.

"You gonna be ok?" Scout asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine with the Doc. Don't you worry. I'll see you in the morning," Sniper assured Scout. Scout smiled softly and left.

"Fido!" Soldier shouted. "Nice of you to join us. We were just talking about our old pets."

Sniper looked confused at Soldier's presence.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. As far as he knew, Medic had recovered.

"Dr. Von Strudel is keeping me here until my strep throat test is done," he said. Sniper raised an eyebrow at the clear absence of any symptoms and looked over at Medic.

The German was making any effort to not look Sniper in the eye.

"Did you have any pets, Fido?" Soldier asked. Sniper chuckled.

"I have one. It's back home with Mum. It's this little dog that she took in a few years back. Have no clue what breed, just some kind of mutt. He was just a pup when Mum found him out behind this tailor's shop. Poor thing had had dye spilled on it, and it won't wash out so he's this pinkish purple color. Mum named him Bravery or something like that, but he's terrified of everything. Dad loves antagonizing him."

"Zhat's mean," Medic said with a look of disapproval.

"Yeah," Sniper continued. "Dad doesn't like him much, but Mum loves the little bugger to death."

Medic looked out the window at the setting sun.

"I trust you got your affairs in order before making your vay here," he said. Sniper nodded.

"What affairs?" Soldier asked.

"Never you mind, Herr Soldat," Medic said. He saw that the sun had nearly gone down. "You may change in my room if you want, Sniper."

"Actually…" Soldier said nervously. "Do you think I could watch?" Medic looked up in surprise and Sniper's eyebrows shot up.

"You wanna watch?" He asked. "Why?"

"Curious," Soldier shrugged. Sniper thought about it, but soon felt the familiar prickling of heat.

He had to make a decision now.

~O~

BLU Medic was confused. He was currently looking for his favorite green blanket, but could not find it. He knew that Scout had taken it for his burrow and had snuggled in it, but now the pile of blankets was missing that green blanket. He tapped his chin in thought.

Had it been destroyed in the blast?

No, it couldn't have. The rest of the blankets and the area around the burrow had been untouched.

So where was it, then?

Downstairs, the Heavy was having his own problem. He had made a sandvich for Medic, but could not find it. He had left it sitting out on the counter while he went to fix Medic some tea only to turn around and find it gone. He left the kitchen and made his way to the common room where he saw Spy sitting and about to take a bite out of a familiar sandwich.

"Spy!" Heavy cried. Spy jumped and nearly dropped his sandwich.

"What do you want?" He asked.

"That is Doktor's sandvich!" Heavy said angrily. Spy looked surprised and sheepishly set the sandwich back down on the plate.

"I am so sorry," Spy said, handing it back to the Russian. "I saw it on zhe counter and zhought zhat someone 'ad forgotten about it, and I was so 'ungry."

Heavy snorted.

"Spy should not touch others' food." He took it back into the kitchen and examined it. It looked all right. Spy hadn't eaten any of it, nor had he removed anything from it. Heavy gave a small nod, satisfied of his examination.

Too bad he didn't notice the bits of crushed pills that had been mixed into the mayonnaise.


	17. Bait the Trap

BLU Spy hummed to himself as he rubbed the green blanket all over the ground. He had nicked it from Medic earlier and was pleased at how strong the smell of rabbit was on it. Wolves tracked by scent and Spy was only too happy to create a little trail for the wolf to follow. He rubbed it harder into the ground, smiling with glee. It really was almost insultingly simple. All he had to do now was wait for Medic to pass out and then collect his bait for the trap. Then he would use the BLU Sniper's dart gun to sedate the beast. If he could keep it sedated until he was able to call his superiors to collect him, then Spy would be home free. Spy tossed the blanket not far from the base and chuckled.

Meanwhile, BLU Medic was up to his elbows in paperwork.

He had contacted the BLU superiors about what had happened and they had said that they would send a crew out for repairs as soon as they could. Until then, Medic was to record all damages and put in orders for replacements for equipment and such.

Basically all he could do was suck it up and get over it.

To say that Medic was pissed over the attack was like saying that the Heavy liked sandwiches. It was a gross understatement. His pets had all been injured, his living space had been destroyed and countless things that Medic needed to do his job had gone up in smoke.

Thank God his research hadn't been damaged.

Medic growled low as he filled out another order form. He wanted to get them all done tonight so that he could mail them tomorrow. The soon the better. Until his infirmary was repaired he was going to find out who had deliberately attacked him. And he was going to make them regret it.

A loud knock interrupted his thoughts and he looked up as Heavy entered. Heavy smiled nervously.

"Doktor missed dinner," he said. Medic sighed and flexed the fingers on his left hand.

"I am too busy for dinner," he said. "I have all zhese orders zhat I must fill out plus several more zhings to salvage and inventory."

"But Doktor should still eat," Heavy persisted. He held up a plate that held a sandwich. Medic's eyebrows rose in surprise. No one had ever brought him something to eat before. The team had always kept their distance after they discovered that Medic had no love for his fellow man. It suited Medic fine as it saved him from annoying distractions that would impede his research. He usually came down well after the team had eaten to fix himself something and then he would take it back to his infirmary.

It didn't matter to him as he had eaten alone for pretty much his whole life.

Medic shook his head slightly as Heavy set the plate down on his table, careful to not disturb any of the papers. He looked up and Heavy offered a small smile that Medic struggled to return.

"Danke, Heavy," he muttered. Heavy nodded and left with a warning to not stay up too late.

Medic chuckled at that.

He tried to go back to his paperwork, but his gaze kept traveling back to the sandwich. He tentatively hooked his finger on the plate and brought it closer to him. It was just a simple sandwich, one of the many that Medic had seen Heavy chow down on. The way Heavy acted with his sandwiches you might think that they were some sacred object.

But now Heavy had made one for him.

The gesture touched Medic even as he tried to remain cold to it. He wasn't used to people thinking about him or being concerned about him.

He sure as hell wasn't used to people giving him things.

Medic quickly shoved the sandwich away and went back to his paperwork. It wasn't that important. He would eat it when he was done with the papers.

Only ten minutes later Medic was chewing the delicious sandwich, the papers lying forgotten in front of him.

~O~

Soldier stared at the wolf.

The wolf stared back at him. Wolfie was currently lying on the floor with Archimedes picking food out of his teeth. He stared at Soldier almost lazily.

"That," Soldier began, "was…"

"Yeah," Medic replied. "I felt zhe same vay vhen I first saw him change. It's razher amazing, ja?" Soldier nodded mutely and kneeled down next to Wolfie.

"Is he always like this?" He asked, poking Wolfie in the side. Wolfie ignored him.

"I'm not sure," Medic said. "I can't tell if he's being good because it's his personality, or if it's because I am his Alpha and I told him to be good."

Soldier then began to run his hand through Wolfie's fur.

"He's so soft…" He said. Medic chuckled.

On the other side of the infirmary door, Scout stepped back with wide eyes. Had he really just seen that? Had Sniper really just turned into a wolf?

Scout frowned and stepped forward with a determined look. Medic must have done some kind of experiment on Sniper. That's why Sniper was so secretive about it. That's why he stayed with Medic at night.

But what about Soldier?

Soldier had looked shocked an amazed to see Sniper transform. Obviously he hadn't known about it before and Medic was just now showing him. But why? Did Medic need Soldier's help with the wolf? Scout growled low and prepared to kick the infirmary door open and save his…boyfriend? Love interest? His man? His Sniper! That's it, his Sniper.

But then Reason smacked Scout on the head.

If Medic and Soldier reacted badly to Scout's presence then it would be two on one, and the odds would not be in Scout's favor.

Scout was built for speed, not strength. Medic may not be the strongest on the team, but he could hold his own in a fight.

Especially when he was surrounded by sharp objects.

As for Soldier…

Scout shuddered. He didn't even want to think about what Soldier would do to him. He had seen Soldier on the field, and if the BLU Medic actually did his job then Scout would feel sorry for him.

So what could he do?

Well, there was nothing more he could do now, but he was going to give Medic a piece of his mind in the morning. He was gonna get some answers.

With that thought, Scout shoved his hands in his pockets and took off for a walk to collect his thoughts.

~O~

BLU Spy patiently waited for the pills to kick in. He walked by Medic's new room numerous times and listened for any noises inside. He heard silence three times before he dared to slowly open Medic's door. The room was still messy from boxes and clutter, but the desk was mysteriously empty.

So was the plate that sat on it.

Spy slowly stepped into the room and found Medic unconscious on the floor. He had obviously been in the middle of moving some things when he passed out. A box lay on its side nearby, its contents spilled out on the floor. Spy nudged Medic with the toe of his show.

Nothing. Not even a stir.

Spy smiled as he looked around and spotted the pile of blankets and pillows. The abomination of a Scout had his head poking out and his little nose twitched in his sleep. Spy carefully picked him up, but hesitated when Scout did not stir. Spy checked him over to see that he was fine.

Oh, Medic must have fed him some of the sandwich.

Well, that just made Spy's job easier.

Spy hoisted the Bunny Scout up again and wrapped him in his blankets. He carried him from the room, making sure to gently shut the door behind him.

Spy had his bait, now all he had to do was set it and wait for the beast.

~O~

"You sure about this?" RED Soldier asked. Medic waved dismissively.

"Ja," He said. "He vill be fine. Just let him out and he vill let us know vhen he's ready to come back in. He is a volf, not a dog so he needs to run around outside a bit." Soldier nodded then turned to the wolf.

"Now listen here," he said, putting on a commanding tone and pointing a finger at Wolfie. "You will not run off. You will not bark or howl. You will be good. You will do your business and then come right back. Understand?"

Wolfie licked Soldier's finger.

Soldier nodded in satisfaction and opened the back door. Wolfie wasted no time in bolting out into the night. He heard Soldier shut the door behind him and slowly began to sniff around. He was so hungry. His Alpha fed him good food, but he needed something else. He needed something wild.

His nose twitched as he smelled the answer to his problem.

Rabbit.

Wolfie caught the trail and switched into predator mode, not noticing the blue dot on the ground as he ran off.

Across the field, BLU Spy smiled as he watched the wolf through the BLU Sniper's scope.


	18. The Trap is Sprung

_Sniff sniff…_

A coyote.

_Sniff sniff…_

A bird.

_Sniff sniff…_

A group of men.

_Sniff sniff…_

Ha! There, the trail!

Wolfie darted forward again, nose to the ground and following the scent trail. There were many other scents from eighteen other men spread around, but the rabbit trail was fresher. Smelled like a big one too.

Wolfie licked his lips as he continued on.

The trail led him to a building that was very familiar in the back of his mind. Something said he should know what it is, but he was too hungry to care.

The trail got stronger as he came across a green blanket.

~O~

Spion was not an idiot.

He was a crab, yes, but he was no idiot.

He had seen the BLU Medic pass out, and he had seen someone (the room had been too dark to see) sneak in and snatch up Scout. He knew that something was afoot, and he needed to get Medic up. He dropped down from his cozy bed (handmade by Medic) and scuttled across the floor.

He poked and prodded Medic with his claw, but Medic didn't stir. Irritated, he moved around and pinched Medic's thumb hard with both claws. Medic grunted in his sleep and cracked open a blurry eye. He tried to shove Spion away with a few sleepy murmurs, but his hand missed. He rolled over onto his back and fell still again.

Spion gave an angry chitter and climbed up on Medic's chest. Medic groaned softly and Spion couldn't help but feel bad for him.

He felt worse for what he was about to do.

Spion felt around on Medic's chest before he found his target. He raised his claw and clamped it onto Medic's nipple hard, then he gave it a sharp twist.

"OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" Medic shot up and Spion let go, nearly falling off. Medic grabbed Spion and glared at him.

"Vhat is-" He broke off when Spion began to chitter and point to the Scout's burrow. Medic fished around on the floor for his glasses while trying to fight off wave after wave of dizziness. He felt horrible, and it wasn't because of Spion.

Medic finally set his glasses back on his face and saw the empty burrow.

"Ficken," he cursed. "Did he escape?"

Spion shook his head.

"Did someone take him?"

Soion nodded.

"Did you see who it vas, Spion?"

Spion sadly shook his head.

Medic sighed and briefly grasped his temples. He really was not feeling well. Standing up on wobbly legs, he placed Spion back in his bed.

"Don't vorry," he whispered tenderly. "I vill find him and bring him back."

Spion chittered sadly as he watched Medic leave.

~O~

BLU Spy watched gleefully through the scope as the wolf slowly came closer and closer. He had to be very careful as he only had one shot. True, he had found a way to silence the gun, but a wolf was tricky to shoot a second time. The tranquilizer darts had been loaded and were ready to fire, but he still had to wait for the wolf to get in position.

That beast was sure to be heavy, and Spy was not built for strength.

He had strung Scout up on a lone beam to keep the wolf in one place. Scout half hung off the hammock-like structure like an ornament, but Spy was too busy watching the wolf.

He was nearly there.

The wolf looked up at the dangling Scout and circled around slowly.

This was it!

Fire now!

Spy fired, but a split second later his scope was filled with blue. He pulled the scope away to see…

The BLU Medic had pinned the wolf.

Spy cursed to himself in his native tongue and reloaded. Maybe he could sedate the Medic and then the wolf. He aimed again, but then the poorly strung up Scout fell into the fray and woke up.

It soon turned into a wrestling match as Medic held the wolf back and Scout screeched and tried to untangle himself from the ropes. The sound was ungodly, and lights came on around the base.

"What is happening?" A loud voice rumbled.

Spy groaned as any chance he had was quickly shot to hell. He gathered up the gun and darts and quickly made himself scarce.

~O~

BLU Medic held the wolf down and began to drag him away from Scout. The wolf clawed and bit, but Medic held fast. If he were feeling better, he would have drug the wolf completely away by now, but he was still affected by his odd sickness. He saw some lights come on, briefly blinding both him and the wolf, and heard someone come out of the base.

That's when the wolf suddenly froze.

Then the wolf was suddenly running off into the dark.

Medic panted and collapsed backwards onto the ground. His glasses had fallen off again, and he closed his eyes in exhaustion.

He opened his eyes again when he felt someone slide his glasses back on his face and saw the BLU Heavy standing over him.

"Doktor is hurt," Heavy said, kneeling down.

"Sc-Scout," Medic mumbled. "Is Scout ok?" Heavy looked over to where Scout had mostly calmed down and was now cleaning his patches of fur.

"Da," Heavy said. "Scout is fine." Something glinted in the light and Heavy reached down to pick up something that had gotten stuck in the hem of Medic's coat.

It was a tranquilizer dart. Heavy panicked, thinking that the dart had unloaded in Medic, but there was no blood on it. Heavy started slightly when Medic grabbed his wrist and pulled it down so that he could look at the dart.

"Is Jarate man's dart," heavy said. Medic sighed again and dropped his hand. His head was pounding and the dizziness would not go away. He couldn't think at all, nor could he really move. He let his eyes close and he succumbed to slumber.

~O~

RED Scout really hadn't thought this idea through. He was stuck out in the darkness with a flashlight and trailing after a wolf who was also his boyfriend. He had seen the wolf run off while he was out on his walk and after a few minutes decided to follow him.

What kind of mad scientist just let their experiments run off?

Scout snorted as he stood out in the cold wilderness between the bases. He shined his flashlight around, but didn't see any wolves.

"Sniper?" Scout called. "You out here? Can you even still understand me? Oh, this is stupid. I shoulda just stayed in the base…" He smacked a hand to his head and grunted in frustration.

Then he froze as he heard what sounded like rapid footsteps.

Scout barely had any time to look around before he was suddenly bowled over by something large and furry.

Scout cried out, thinking that he had been found by some kind of wild animal, but stopped when whatever it was began to lick him like an overexcited puppy.

The light from the flashlight illuminated the animal's face, revealing blue eyes, black fur, and a very familiar scar.

"Snipes?" Scout asked. The wolf jumped back, making happy excited noises, and began to scamper around Scout. Scout sat up and watched the wolf in surprise. Medic must have trained him or tamed him or something. Scout chuckled as the wolf began to lick him again.

"Ok Snipes, that's enough," he said. The wolf sat lay down in Scout's lap, panting happily. Scout smiled and ran his hands through the wolf's fur. It didn't seem like Sniper was in control. The wolf acted like a wolf, well like a dog at least, and didn't seem to understand English. Hell, he didn't even seem to recognize his own name.

But he remembered his love for Scout.

Scout couldn't help the happiness he felt in knowing that Sniper still loved him even as a wolf. He sat there for a few more minutes just petting the wolf and being happy, but he knew that they had to get back.

"Ok," Scout nudged the wolf until he got up then he stood. "We need to get back now. Medic'll kill me if he finds you out here with me. At least I think he will. Anyway, come on, Snipes."

Scout picked up his flashlight and led the wolf back to the RED base. He slowly opened the back infirmary door and gestured to the wolf to go in.

"Go on, Snipes. I'll see you tomorrow," he whispered. The wolf let out a huge whine and pawed at Scout's leg.

"Just go," Scout said. "I can't go in there with you." The wolf gave a low growl and plopped down onto the ground. Scout groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. He silently weighed his options before sighing.

"Ok, fine. I'll go in there with you. Now come on." Scout held the door open for the wolf to scamper inside and onto a nearby bed. Scout sighed again as he followed and locked the door behind him.

~O~

"Bloody Hell! What happened?" BLU Sniper stared as Heavy carried an unconscious and bleeding Medic through the halls of the base. The rest of the team was poking their heads out of their rooms to see what was going on.

"Someone attacked Doktor," said Heavy. "Jarate man, go outside and get Scout, please." Sniper shook wrenched his eyes away from the mauled doctor and ran off to do as Heavy asked. Heavy shouldered Medic's door open and deposited him on his bed. He sighed, regretting his lack of knowledge on the Medigun.

"Damn," he cursed. "Doktor needs more than bandages."

"Mphhs?"

Heavy looked up to see Pyro staring at him. He was clutching his stuffed Balloonicorn and wearing blue pajamas that were patterned with yellow duckies.

"Leetle Pyro wants to help?" He asked. Pyro nodded and shut the door on the rest of the team before setting his plushie aside. He dug through the clutter until he found a small white kit. He opened it and removed a few things.

"Mhhd phffg dghhs," He said. He needed water and lots of towels. Heavy nodded and went to go retrieve those things. Meanwhile, Pyro sterilizes a needle with his lighter and threaded it.

Heavy came back not long after with a big bowl of water and several towels.

Pyro had Heavy strip Medic down to his boxers (simple blue with no pattern) and flushed out his wounds with disinfectant and water.

He then had Heavy bandage the smaller cuts and bites while he got to work on sewing up the worst of the injuries. When they were done Medic looked like a partial mummy from the waist up. Heavy changed the sheets on Medic's bed and then gently lay him down and pulled the covers over him. Pyro hesitated then gently set the Balloonicorn plushie between Medic's arm and chest.

Heavy looked down at the ground when he heard chittering and saw Spion tugging at the hem of his pants with his claw.

"Is leetle crab," Heavy said, reaching down to pick up Spion. Spion scrambled over Heavy's fingers and made a great leap onto the bed. He curled up on a corner of Medic's pillow and fell silent.

The door suddenly opened to reveal Sniper with Scout. Scout immediately went over to his burrow and began to dig into the blankets.

"Mongrel's just fine," Sniper said, gesturing to Scout. He looked over the Medic on the bed and grimaced. "What happened out there?"

"Do not know," Heavy shrugged. "Went out and saw Doktor saving Scout from wolf."

"A wolf?" Sniper asked, surprised. "Wolves aint exactly common around here."

"Know what I saw," Heavy said. "Doktor was fighting wolf."

"But why were Doc, and Scout out there in the first place?" Sniper asked, scratching the back of his head.

"Do not know," said Heavy, digging in his pocket. "But saw this." He held up the dart and Sniper's eyes widened in shock.

"That's a dart from me Sydney Sleeper," he said. "but this don't look like anything I've ever filled it with."

"Da," said Heavy. "Someone must have been trying to set Doktor up. Tried to attack him again."

"Damn," Sniper said. "I don't really like the Doc, but this aint right. I need to go check on my guns now. If some bastard took them…" He didn't finish as he left the room.

"Thank you for help, leetle Pyro," Heavy said. "We will check on Doktor tomorrow." Pyro gave a double thumbs up and followed Heavy out of the room.

~O~

BLU Spy had decided on a nice smoke before bed. He had managed to get back into his room before Heavy got back, and he had replaced Sniper's weapons. He had played the part of the concerned and confused teammate, and he had fooled them all.

Or so he thought…

The door to the mess hall opened and Spy looked over to see the BLU Engineer come in. His face was set in a hard expression, and he looked like a man on a mission. Engineer sat down across from Spy and scowled. Spy looked on emotionlessly.

"What in the nine circles of Hell do you think you're doing Spy?" Engineer said. Spy smirked and chuckled.

"Why Engineer, whatever can you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, Spy," Engineer growled. "You aint dumb and neither am I. I know you did something to the Doc."

"Now why would you zhink zhat?" Spy asked.

"Yesterday you manipulated me into attacking the Doc and now he's suddenly attacked again? Did you rope someone else into doing your dirty work or did you actually do it yourself this time?"

"Engineer," Spy said slowly. "I would advise you to, as zhey say, drop it. What I am doing is none of your business. Anyway, why are you suddenly so concerned for zhe docteur? You 'ate 'im just as much as I do."

"I don't give a rat's ass what happens to the Doc," Engineer snarled. "What I do care about is you manipulating us and getting us in trouble while you come out smelling like a damn rose."

"It's my job-"

"And it's my job to kill spies," Engineer bit out. "I'll make one thing clear. You either do you own damn dirty work or I'll make things very difficult for you here. You know I can do that."

Spy glared at the Texan. How dare such an insignificant fool threaten him?

"Why would you risk zhat when you attacked 'im too?"

"Cuz Medic is the Administrator's favorite. I just attacked his pets. You went after him directly. And you did it after he was blown up. That's gonna look worse than what I did."

Spy sighed and took a drag from his cigarette. This was but a small snag in his plan.

Unfortunately it was a snag that came right after another failure.

Spy liked to pride himself on being able to control his temper, but even he had limits. He knew that Engineer really could make things difficult for him, and Spy didn't like people having that kind of power over him.

Unless they were his boss.

So Spy held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and smiled.

"Very well," he said. "I will stop my vendetta against zhe Docteur unless I am zhe one doing zhe dirty work."

"Bullshit," Engineer said. "I don't trust you at all."

"Well, zhat is your own problem, n'est ce pas? I can only offer you my word."

"You just stop whatever bullshit you're spinning," Engineer said as he stood up. "Before it comes back to splatter on you." Spy glared at the Engineer's back as he left.

Spy had worked extra hard to not implicate himself tonight. He had used Scout as bait, he had had Heavy deliver the sandwich, and he had used Sniper's gun.

But if Heavy mentioned that Spy had touched the sandwich first…

Or if Engineer mentioned that Spy had manipulated him…

Well, that was it then.

Spy extinguished his cigarette and made his way to the conference room to the phone that only had one purpose.

Spy picked up the receiver and hit the button on the side.

"Zhis is zhe BLU Spy calling for zhe Administrator. I 'ave some information on zhe culprit of yesterday's attack."


	19. A Little Warmth

It wasn't that RED Scout was a heavy sleeper. Well, it was it's just that growing uo with six older brothers had taught him how to sleep through certain noises. Namely brawls, insults, shouts, trains, and other things. But ever since he came into the war he trained himself to wake up at the sounds of attack. He had trained himself to be roused by the smallest sounds of danger like the sound of a deactivating cloak, the chink of a balisong…

Or the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

Scout's eyes flew open to see an angry looking Soldier pointing a shotgun at his face.

"Immoral nonconsensual fraternization," he growled. Scout did what any man would have done.

He punched Soldier, which surprised him into shooting his gun.

Which caused Sniper to jump up, tangle in this sheets, and fall to the floor.

Which caused Medic to wake up and fumble for his glasses.

Scout quickly jumped away to avoid Soldier.

"The hell, Soldier?!" he shouted.

"Why must I once again be subjected to waking up to naked men in bed together!?" Soldier yelled.

"Oi!" Sniper stood, the sheet wrapped around his waist. "We already went over that and said it was an accident. However," he turned to glare at Scout, "the hell are you doing here? I thought I sent you off last night."

"Why am I here?" Scout hissed back. "How about why didn't you tell me that you're some kind of freaky werewolf experiment from the Doc?"

Sniper snarled and soon all three were yelling and arguing.

Medic sighed as he pulled a robe on over his pajamas. He really was surrounded by idiots sometimes. He slowly made his way over to a small chalkboard that was mounted on a wall.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!

Sniper gripped his ears in agony as his hearing was assaulted. This was a time that he hated having extra sensitive hearing now. Soldier and Scout grimaced as well, and their din slowly quieted down.

Medic removed his nails from the chalkboard and walked back over to the group.

"Now zhat everyone has shut up…" He began, but Scout grabbed him.

"What did you do to my Snipes," he asked. Then the shotgun was back and pressed against his head.

"Get your goddamned hands off my Dr. Von Strudel," he growled.

"Then tell your Dr. Pon Snoozel to keep his needles outta my Snipes," Scout growled, but released Medic.

"Oi! The lot of you need to just stop," Sniper said, pulling on some patient pants.

"Just tell me what's going on," Scout said. "Why did you change into a wolf last night?"

"How about you tell me how you saw zhat," Medic said, eyes narrowing. "I covered zhe vindows-" He looked back at said windows and saw that one of the papers that covered them was missing a corner.

"Oh you little Scheiße," Medic snarled. "You tore zhe paper and zhen left to vatch, didn't you?"

"Can you blame me for being worried?" Scout snapped back.

Medic sighed and crossed his arms.

"I suppose not," he said. "But zhat still does not explain vhy you are here."

"I followed Snipes last night out into the field. I didn't see where he went, but he ran into me. I brought him back, but he wouldn't stay in here without me so we just fell asleep."

"A likely story!" Soldier crowed. Medic elbowed him.

"Did he hurt you?" Medic asked.

"Nah. Just acted like a big puppy. It was actually kind of cute."

"Well that's cuz he recognizes you as his mate. So you won't hafta worry about him hurting you," Sniper said.

"But last time I saw him he tried to kill me," Scout said in confusion.

"That was cuz you rejected me and he didn't consider you a mate anymore. It was only after I risked my life to save you from the BLU Spy and BLU Soldier that he figured to give you another chance," Sniper explained, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

Scout cringed.

"Yeah…" he said in a sad tone. Sniper smiled and put an arm around his shoulder.

"Don't worry, mongrel. We already straightened all that out. He's accepted you again and that's all that matters."

Soldier huffed and crossed his own arms, flexing his arms through the sleeves of his own patient pajamas, hoping to catch Medic's attention.

"Vell, I am glad zhat zhis has all be straightened out," Medic smiled, straining to watch Soldier's arms while also looking forward. "You both need to learn to trust zhe ozher. You cannot keep sneaking around like zhis."

"Yeah," said Soldier. "Fido, you should've told Scooty about your condition. I once heard a story about a werewolf who didn't tell anyone about his problem."

"Scooty?" Scout repeated.

"Vhat story?" Medic asked.

"Well, it was a young man who became a werewolf but didn't tell anyone," Soldier began. "He kept sneaking off at night to change and everyone got suspicious. His mom thought he was doing drugs and his girlfriend thought he was cheating on her. So one night, they locked him in his room until he would confess, but instead he changed and ate them. The next morning he was arrested and convicted of their murders. Then he was hauled off to jail, but he changed again that night and the warden brought in some zoo keepers to capture him. They put him in an exhibit with some other wolves and then in the morning he was eaten when he changed back. So that's why you gotta tell people if you're a werewolf or not."

A heavy silence followed the end of Soldier's story. Sniper and Scout were looking at him as if he had gone crazy, while Medic just facepalmed.

"Danke, Herr Soldat," he said through his fingers. "I didn't need all of zhose IQ points zhat I just lost from listening to your story."

~O~

_BLU Medic was surprised to see the RED Spy in his infirmary. He was even more surprised to see the Spy's Ambassador sitting on the desk across the room. The Spy faced Medic and raised his hands in surrender._

_"Do you have a death vish, Monsieur l'Espion?" Medic asked. "Or did you come here for a social visit?"_

_"A bit of both, actually," Spy said, lowering his hands and sitting on a bed. Medic raised his eyebrows in surprise._

_"Both?" He repeated. "So…vhat? Did you come here to ask me to kill you?"_

_"To kill a spy," said Spy._

_"Zhe difference?" Medic asked. Spy sighed and slowly but surely removed his mask, revealing the face of an older man with short blonde hair. Medic gasped at this action. He had heard that Spies were forbidden to reveal their true faces. Spy frowned and tossed his mask onto the floor._

_"I want you to kill zhat," he said, gesturing to the mask._

_"How do you propose I do zhat?" Medic asked, walking over to his desk and picking up the gun that lay there._

_"I know about your research," said the Spy._

_BANG!_

_Spy jumped from the bed and onto the floor, looking up at Medic with narrowed eyes. Medic blew the smoke from the barrel of the gun._

_"You DO have a death vish to be admitting such zhings," he said, now admiring the etching on the gun. It was a beautiful peacock with plumage that trailed along the side of the barrel._

_"Your research can 'elp me," Spy said, standing up. "Zhis war is pointless. A waste of 'uman effort and skill. I am sick of it all. I am sick of only finding peace in my dreams and dying day after day. Zhis is not life, Herr Doktor. Zhis is 'Ell."_

_Medic paused at that. He slowly looked over at the Spy with a coldness in his eyes that made Spy stifle a shiver._

_"Zhis is not Hell," he said. "I lived in Hell for my entire childhood and believe me when I say that I would razher stay here zhan go back to it. Still, you have piqued my interest. How much of my research do you know?"_

_"I know what it does," Spy said, "but I don't know 'ow it does it. I do not know zhe process."_

_"And it vill stay zhat vay," Medic said, setting the gun aside. "I must ask, zhough, are you sure zhat zhis is vhat you vant?" Spy nodded without hesitation._

_"It will be better zhan fighting 'ere or spending zhe rest of my life constantly looking over my shoulder. I 'ave zhought about zhis for a long time and 'ave made my decision."_

_"And vhen do you vant zhis to happen?" Medic asked._

_"Immediately."_

_Medic grinned in glee and put a hand on the Spy's shoulder._

_"Vell zhen," he said. "If you are to join my happy family I vill need to know your name." Spy looked away in shame._

_"I don't remember it," he said. Medic rubbed his back in sympathy._

_"Zhen you shall have a new one," he said. "I shall call you Spion."_

BLU Medic gasped as he woke up then groaned. He was sore all over, and he couldn't see much. He stuck a hand out and managed to find his glasses. Sliding them on, he saw that he was in his bed in his room. He felt an odd fuzzy feeling on his chest. He looked down to discover the Balloonicorn in his arm.

Ignoring the plush for now, Medic pulled the blanket down to see his bandages. Now who had done that?

"Mpph hm?" Medic glanced over to see the BLU Pyro. Pyro trotted over and clasped his hands in front of himself. Medic struggled into a sitting position, twisting his body so that he was leaning against the wall behind the bed.

"No, it vasn't a bad dream," Medic said. "It vas a memory." He leaned back against the wall, hand over his face and breathed deep to ward off the nausea. Pyro watched mesmerized as that powerful chest swelled with each breath. It was littered in scars, some were somewhat fresh, but most were years old. Without thinking, Pyro reached forward and ran his fingers over Medic's chest.

"Vhat are you doing?" Medic snapped, jerking back at Pyro's touch. Pyro recoiled nervously and mumbled something while gesturing to Medic's bandages.

"So you did zhese?" Medic asked. Pyro nodded.

"Mhh hmph," he said.

"Herr Heavy did too?" Medic asked in surprise. "Vhy not use my medigun?"

Pyro mumbled again.  
"You don't know how to use it…" Medic mused. He cleared his throat and got out of bed. His healing factor already helped some of the injuries, but he still needed his medigun. He sighed and began looking for it.

"Mppjd hgggne tuuekd hhgutk."  
"Oh," Medic said as he picked up his medigun. "Zhe Administrator called for me? I vill call her back in a moment." He quickly set his gun and turned it on, huffing the fumes to heal quicker.

Feeling awkward, Pyro grabbed his balloonicorn and left. He trudged down the hallway, admonishing himself for touching Medic like that. It really couldn't be helped, he supposed. Pyro had a fascination with muscles and scars.

Medic was quite the specimen.

Pyro wanted to know what had caused those scars. He wanted to know why Medic didn't like to be touched. He suddenly stopped in realization.

Perhaps the two were related, he thought.

But Medic was like a block of ice in that it would take a lot of warmth and chipping away to be able to see what he hid on the inside.

Well, Pyro had plenty of warmth.

~O~

"I understand zhat you vanted to see me," BLU Medic said, watching the Administrator on the video screen. The Administrator smiled as she puffed her cigarette.

"I have some information that you will like," she said. "We found out who attacked the infirmary."

"Oh," Medic's eyes flashed. "So vhich RED vill I be torturing in zhe next battle?"

"It wasn't a RED," said the Administrator. "It was the BLU Engineer."

The Administrator smiled gleefully as she saw every circle of Hell come alive in Medic's eyes. She loved it when he got mad. He never disappointed with his shows of rage, and that was just how she liked it.

Medic took a deep breath to stop shaking in fury.

"Vhy are you telling me?" He asked. "You're just going to fire him like you have others before, ja?"  
"Not quite," said the Administrator. "I thought I would give you a little present. You need some subjects for your research and I need to get rid of an employee. So I thought we could just give you the Engineer to dispose of as you see fit. Just make sure you can't tell it's him. We don't want the other mercenaries to get suspicious."

"Vhat vill you tell zhem?" Medic asked.

"Just that he attacked you and was fired and sent home. This arrangement will be out little secret." The Administrator took a drag on her cigarette and smiled as she exhaled the smoke. "So do you accept our gift?"

Medic bent into an elegant bow then straightened up.

"You are alvays too good to me," he said.

~O~

BLU Engineer woke up to find himself strapped to a table. His shoulder throbbed where the syringe had pierced him. He struggled in his restraints, but stopped when he heard someone close by. BLU Medic sauntered into his field of vision. What scared Engineer the most was the wicked look on his face.

"Count yourself lucky," Medic said. "Zhey vere going to kill you but zhey gave you to me instead. Such a lucky little dog, ja?"

Engineer tried to say something scathing, but his mouth was gagged. Medic carefully prepared another syringe then turned back to Engineer.

"Just count backvards from zehn," he said, plunging the syringe into Engineer's arm. "It vill all be over viz soon…"

Engineer prayed for mercy from every god he knew as his world slowly went black.


	20. Realizations and Moving

"No fight today?" The RED Engineer stroked his chin. "Mighty odd."

"I was told that we are not fighting because we must prepare for moving," said Soldier. The team was gathered around the table in the mess hall and eating a decent breakfast this time. Heavy had volunteered to cook and made syrniki. Spy said he would make crepes next time.

"Moving?" Heavy repeated, sliding a few more cakes onto Sniper's plate. He had noticed that Sniper had been eating more for a while now. He had been worried that Sniper might have had a tapeworm, but Sniper had just said it was just his metabolism acting up.

"Tomorrow we will be leaving for Coldfront," Soldier explained. "We'll board a train, and the trip should take about all day to get there. So make sure that you all pack tonight because we will not be coming back if you forget your tampons!"

"Why are we moving?" Spy asked. Soldier shrugged.

"I don't know because I did not ask. I obey my orders instead of whining and complaining like a bunch of pansies!"

"But why Coldfront?" Scout whined. "Doesn't it like always snow up there?"

"Ha! Little man does not like snow!" Heavy boomed. "Will be just like home!"

"Great," Medic deadpanned. "Now instead of heat stroke and sunburn I vill be healing frostbite and hypothermia." He frowned down at his sausages.

"We aren' tha' stupid ta ge' hur' like tha'," Demo slurred. Medic fixed him with an 'are you kidding me' look.

"Everyone needs to be on their game. Fighting in the snow is a lot different than fighting here," said Soldier. "And the enemy won't be lobbing snowballs at us."

"Which puts me in a bit of a rut," Sniper mused. "I've never even experienced snow. Never snows back home."

"That's cuz you live in the friggin hottest place on Earth," Scout joked. "Relax, snow aint gonna kill ya."

"When you ladies are done we will report to the War Room for strategies," Soldier said. He was going to say more, but then he was distracted as he hungrily watched Medic lick some juice from one of his sausage links.

~O~

The BLU Scout exited the respawn and scowled. He was back to normal, he remembered everything, and all he knew now was that he was going to kill the BLU Medic.

He angrily stomped his way to Medic's room, clutching his favorite bat. No guns. That bastard didn't deserve a clean shot and then death.

He kicked Medic's door open and rushed inside, swinging his bat at the doctor.

Medic dropped the blanket he was folding and easily caught the bat.

"Is something vrong, Herr Scout?" he grinned. Scout tried to yank his bat away, but Medic held firm. Giving up, Scout tried to punch and kick Medic, but the German just grabbed him and held him still.

"I zhink I liked you better vhen you vere a bunny," Medic mused.

"Fuck you!" Scout shouted. "I can't believe you even did that! You're fucked up!"

"I did varn you," Medic growled. "And zhen you smarted off to me. You got off pretty easy if you ask me. After all, did I abuse you as a bunny?" He flipped Scout onto his bed, jostling a nearby cage, and turned away to dig through some boxes.

Scout opened his mouth to yell some more but a loud barking and growling caught his attention. He looked down at the nearby cage to see a small fat sausage of a dog biting at the bars of his cage. The dog had short stubby legs, fluffy blonde and white hair, and no tail. He had odd markings in the form of two black spots over his eyes and what looked like two white straps going up his shoulders.

Scout stared as the dog continued to act savagely.

"What the hell is that?" Scout said out loud.

"Zhat is a Pembroke Velsh Corgi," said Medic. "I got him from a nearby shelter. Vich is vhy you are human again. I can't have too many pets."

Scout stared some more.

"He looks kinda…rabid or something," Scout leaned down to see the dog better. The dog in turn began to bark louder.

"He's just scared," Medic waved dismissively. "After all, he is not familiar viz zhis situation. But hopefully he vill learn to behave. Zhe Administrator said zhat if I cannot keep him contained…zhen he vill have to be put down." He said this with a hint of regret, but Scout could swear he heard a hint of malice.

The dog suddenly froze and quieted.

Then he sunk to the bottom of the cage and whimpered lowly.

Scout looked at the dog in pity before he remembered that he had come here to bat Medic's brains in. His hand inched towards the bat on the floor.

"Before you even ZHINK about using zhat bat on me," Medic growled, "go back to your room and really zhink about how I treated you as a bunny. If you are still angry, zhen I vill allow you to beat me until respawn claims me. Until zhen, do not disturb me."

Scout frowned and picked up his bat. If he went after Medic now he would more than likely get a bone saw to his face for his trouble. If he left and came back, then he would get his free kill.

Scout grudgingly left and slammed the door behind him.

Medic sighed and sat down at his desk. Spion was nibbling on a bit of a strawberry from breakfast and chittered soothingly as he gently stroked Medic's hand with a claw. Medic smiled and reciprocated Spion's actions.

"Did you try talking to him?" He asked. Spion chittered and nodded.

"I take it zhat he is not happy."

Spion shook his head.

"Vell, perhaps ve can help him feel better zhen. Ve are going to be moving tomorrow to Coldfront. I vant to stop by zhe town today to pick up some supplies for him." Medic looked over at the sad dog and saw that he would be needing a few things to make his stay more comfortable.

Spion's chittering broke him from his thoughts.

"Of course I still love you," Medic assured the crab. "You have been here zhe longest. Even longer zhan my birds. And you have alvays helped me vhen I needed it. I vill not love zhis dog more zhan I love you."

Spion chittered and held up a claw.

"Pinky promise," Medic interlaced his pinky with Spion's claw.

~O~

BLU Scout was sitting on his bed and trying to kill time until he could go back and murder Medic. He couldn't believe that Nazi fuck had done that shit to him. He also couldn't believe how he had acted as a bunny. All cutesy and shit. He could still taste all that lettuce and carrots he had eaten. All chopped up and mixed together with care. Always when he was hungry. No matter what the doctor was busy with…

Scout shifted uncomfortably when he realized that these past few days had been when he had eaten the best since he had gotten here. Normally he had to fight for just a portion of meals, and the food was always terrible.

But Medic had made him as much food as he wanted. And it had all tasted so good.

Then there was the burrow. Medic had sacrificed his favorite green blanket and all the other blankets and slept with just the thin sheets on his bed so that Scout would be comfortable. He had even given Scout all of his pillows and was left with no pillows on his bed.

Scout frowned and curled into himself.

Then there was all the petting and affection Medic had given him.

Scout was still homesick and missed his mother fiercely. He would always deny it, but he loved how she would hug him and kiss him and tease him like a mother should. Ever since he had joined the war, no one had given him any ounce of friendship or attention.

No one except for Medic.

Medic had laughed, hugged him, let him gnaw on his fingers, told him how he was such a good boy, and had given him all the affection that he had been missing from his mother.

Scout guilty grimaced.

Then there was the other night when he had been attacked.

Scout remembered falling onto the wolf and feeling so scared, but he had been tangled in the rope and couldn't get away. He had thought that he was going to die, and the rabbit part of his brain had forgotten about respawn.

But then Medic had appeared.

Scout remembered how Medic had wrestled the wolf away from Scout. The wolf had bitten and clawed, getting in some devastating hits, but Medic had held firm and kept the wolf away.

He could have just let Scout die. Scout would have respawned, Medic knew that. He could have just left Scout to die and respawn.

But he hadn't. And he had suffered for it.

Scout dropped his bat as he realized that those days as a bunny had been his best days here.

Dare he say it…he was going to miss those days.

~O~

"Corgineer," Medic said to the dog. The dog was settled down, but continued to bare his teeth and growl lowly.

"Vas?" Medic admonished. "Zhe Corgi is a very regal dog. Besides, you have 11 PhD's and Corgis are ranked as the eleventh smartest breed of dog. I zhought it vas only fitting."

Corgineer growled louder Medic narrowed his eyes.

"You had best be careful. I am zhe only reason as to vhy you are still alive. Vizout me you vould be dead right now."

The door suddenly opened and Medic turned to see it was Scout.

"Ah," he said. "Have you zhought about zhese past few days?"

Scout didn't say anything, and he had his head down low enough where his hat hid his face. Medic watched curiously as Scout approached and then gasped when Scout threw his arms around Medic to hug him.

Reflex and panic seized the doctor as years old memories surfaced and he raised his arm to strike Scout away, but he paused when he heard the young man sniffle.

"Thank you," Scout murmured.

Medic was shocked to say the least. He had not expected this reaction from the Bostonian. Slowly, his arms lowered until he was able to return Scout's hug and pat his back.

Maybe now he wouldn't miss that bunny so much.


	21. Trains and Plots

"Coldfront," Scout growled. He threw a ball and Wolfie ran off to retrieve it. "Outta all the bases, why Coldfront? What's the point? There's nothing there but a buncha ice and snow and stuff. What are we defending or attacking? What, the yeti?" Wolfie dropped the ball at Scout's feet and yawned. Scout smiled and scratched behind Wolfie's ears.  
"Well, at least you might like it there," he said. "All this fur will keep you warm, and at least it won't be all that suspicious if someone sees you. Wolves probably prowl around up there all the time. Only thing is we won't be able to hide as much. Red kinda stands out against the snow, don't it? Those BLUs might even get an advantage over us. Not to mention running in the cold aint all that fun."  
"Ach, vill you stop vhining?"  
Scout looked back to see Medic striding towards him. Soldier lagged behind like a puppy.  
"Honestly," Medic continued. "For a boy who grew up in Boston, you zhink you vould like zhe snow. "  
"Bad memories," said Scout. "You can only get pelted by yellow snow so many times before you start hating the snow."  
Medic grimaced and Soldier laughed.

"Zhat is enough, Soldat," said Medic. "If Scout vants to sulk zhen who are ve to stop him?"  
"I'm not sulking," said Scout. "I'm just talking to Snipes is all."  
"Ja, and I just came out to check to make sure zhat you are packed and not compromising Herr Sniper's secret."  
"Hey, all the other guys are asleep and aint even looking," said Scout.  
Well, he was correct in that none of the REDs were awake.  
~O~

"All aboard!" Engie shouted as the men shuffled onto the train. Sniper looked to be asleep on his feet. Scout was there to help him if needed, but Sniper just plopped into a seat and yawned.  
"What did we do last night?" he asked. He felt more tired than usual.  
"We played some ball," said Scout. "And then we wrestled, and then we had a few races."  
"Blimey," Sniper yawned again. "No wonder I'm so bloody tired." Scout chuckled sheepishly and turned to watch the Spy wipe at his seat with a crinkled nose before sitting down. Ha, germaphobe.

The train lurched forward as it slowly began to move, and the RED team settled down for a long train ride. Sniper had the right idea by falling asleep almost immediately.  
~O~

Meanwhile, the BLUs were in a similar situation. The bulk of the team was at the head of the train, talking about Engineer getting fired. Everyone had been shocked that Engie had attacked his own team mate. While a few members didn't exactly care as it was 'the crazy sadistic doctor' who had been attacked, most had voiced disapproval and outrage that engineer had been so cruel. The BLU Heavy, who had been the one to see the Medic so broken over the corpses of his birds (even though he knew they would respawn) had the loudest voice in this argument. The others still weren't convinced until the BLU Sniper pointed out that if that was the way Engineer had been, then anyone could have ended up a target.  
The opposition had fallen quiet at that.  
Pyro had taken a few seats away from his team, glancing back at the Medic who had set up at the back of the train. Medic held Spion in his lap while Corgineer snored in his cage (courtesy of a sedative administered by Medic).

Medic was deep in thought as he went over the events of the previous night. He had gone out to look for the wolf that had attacked him. Medic knew animals enough to know that a wolf that size and color was not native to the region of the bases. So the only thing that could answer for it was that someone had brought it in. He had been lucky enough to find the wolf out playing fetch of all things. He had been surprised to see it at the RED base with the RED Scout cuddling it like a puppy.  
So this beast belonged to the REDs? As what, a pet? A weapon? The wolf had been very vicious in its fight with Medic, so perhaps it was the latter. Were the REDs training wolves to be their weapons? Medic pursed his lips with a 'hmm'. It was stupid to even think it, but physical evidence was right there, and he couldn't ignore it even if he wanted to. So now he had that problem as well as the problem with his own team.

The BLU Engineer had been the one to attack him, but Medic was no fool. An Engineer could shoot a rocket from a sentry, but he could not shoot a Sydney Sleeper with such accuracy. Granted, Medic wasn't sure who had been the target, but either way, it was ludicrous to imagine an Engineer trying such a thing. So now he had someone else to worry about. The Pyro, Heavy, and Sniper had all been willing to help him when he was injured, but anyone could fake sympathy and care, he had seen it done many times before with his parents.  
Come to think of it, he had passed out after eating Heavy's sandwich. Even so, a Heavy couldn't shoot like that. Was his whole team against him? Medic glanced over at the men discussing who their new Engineer could be like. Were they all plotting against him behind closed doors?

Spion chittered, drawing Medic's attention away. Medic picked the crab up and held him at eye level.  
"You love me, don't you?" He asked, a faint hint of sorrow in his voice. Spion rubbed his claws against Medic's hands and chittered reassuringly. Medic sighed and pat the crab.  
"I zhink zhey are plotting on me," he said. "Ve vill have to be careful at zhe new base. I vill not allow you or zhe birds to be hurt. I svear it." Spion chittered and pointed at Corgineer.  
"Vell," Medic said. "Perhaps I could spread protection to him as vell. Even zhough he is zhe one who caused so much trouble for us to begin viz."  
Spion chittered.  
"Ja," said Medic. "Zhe volf concerns me too. Vill zhe REDs bring him along? Vill zhey unleash him during a battle? Such brutes to force an animal to fight for zhem." He narrowed his eyes disapprovingly, but looked down when Spion shivered. It was getting cold as they traveled up into the mountains. Medic reached into a bag and pulled out what looked like a small pouch. He put it on Spion, pulling his legs through the little holes and slid two mittens onto Spion's claws. Spion purred in thanks.  
"I suppose he shall vake up soon," Medic glanced down at the dog. "Vhen he does, he vill cause a ruckus. Be a good crab and try to keep him calm, ja?"  
Spion put a claw to his face in a sort of salute.  
~O~

Back on the RED train, Sniper shivered as he pulled a heavy coat on. Heavy was still in his uniform, laughing as the men shivered.  
"Baby men cannot take leetle cold," he said.  
"We aint all polar bears like you," Scout snapped, shivering in his own coat. Soldier opened a box of strange small bags that emitted heat. He offered one to Medic.  
"Can't have you getting sick on us, Dr. Von Strudel," he said. Medic took a bag and shuddered.  
"I have nightmares about getting sick and having you dummkopfs trying to take care of me. You vould all probably kill me," he said.  
"So you feeling better?" Scout softly asked Sniper. Sniper nodded.  
"Don't feel so tired," he said. "Then again I napped for about half the trip."  
"More than half," said the Engineer. "Conductor says we should be there soon. All rooms are already assigned, so no one should be go running off the train like a bull outta a pen cuz they want the 'good room.'" He gave Scout a pointed look.  
"You're just jealous cuz the room I got was pretty sweet," he said, folding his arms.  
"Water and electricity have been turned on this morning, but I recommend you wait a few hours before showering or drinking the water," Engie continued. "Water is shut off when a base is not in use and all kinds of nasty stuff can build up in those pipes when they aint in use."  
Sniper opened his mouth…  
"And I don't wanna hear no stories about making your own filter to so that you could drink from a lake," Engie said, looking over at Sniper. Sniper shrugged.  
"It's true," he said.

Engie sighed and sat back down.


	22. Cold

_Cold._

_Snow._

_Yes…he loved the cold very much._

_His parents were asleep, but he had read enough to finally figure out how to pick a lock. Alfred was there watching him as he twisted his mother's bobby pin into the door lock._

_CLICK!_

_Freedom was his!_

_The door slowly opened and he stood in awe as the outside world was finally open to him. He was almost…scared. He had been in the house for so long, the outside world always just out of reach. What would happen if he stepped through the open door?_

_Alfred trotted outside on his stubby legs, and he couldn't help but follow. The snow crunched beneath his feet and the wind blew through his pajamas. Alfred ran around the garden, kicking up snow. He held his hand up and caught a flake._

BLU Medic jolted awake as Corgineer began to bark. He sighed and pushed his blanket off-  
Blanket?  
Indeed, there was a pink blanket with green butterflies draped over him. Medic looked down at it with a sneer. There was only one merc who had a blanket like this. He looked up for Pyro, but the merc was nowhere to be found. Medic sighed and tossed the blanket into another seat.  
Corgineer began to growl and bite at the bars of his cage. The other BLUs looked on with annoyance, but knew better than to say anything. BLU Medic glared down at the cage.  
"Shall I zhrow you off zhis train and let you valk?" He snapped. Corgineer gave a whimper and settled down.  
Pyro watched Medic through the window of the luggage compartment. He turned away and slid his mask off, taking a breath of fresh air. His curly brown hair was sweaty and he scratched at it. He sat down on a crate and shivered. It was cold without his blanket, but Medic had been shivering worse in his sleep. Was it another nightmare? Pyro knew that Medic had nightmares sometimes. Pyro nervously fiddled with his mask while he listened to the other BLUs get ready to depart.  
"M-M-M-Me-dic…" he said softly.  
~O~

"So this is snow?" RED Sniper carefully disembarked the train, stepping into the freshly fallen snow with a grimace. "Ugh…this is worse than the mud pits back home. Least those are warm." He drew his coat tighter.  
"Ha!" RED Heavy stomped out behind him. "Is nothing like old country. Leetle Sniper is too soft." He thudded Sniper on the back, sending him sprawling in the snow.  
"This is not the time for snow angels!" Soldier roared at the fallen Sniper. "We have weapons to unpack and inspect. I want everyone to do a full inspection of their gear to make sure no damage was sustained by the trip!" His boots made an intimidating crunching noise, and he stomped even harder as he walked as if he were trying to kill the snow.  
"Not much of a snow angel," Scout grinned as Sniper stood and brushed the snow from his coat.  
"Leetle Scout do better?" Heavy shoved Scout down and laughed. Medic sighed as he walked up.  
"Are you already trying to make my job difficult?" He asked. "If anyone comes to me tonight viz frost bite I WILL turn zhem avay. Ve are not kind-ACK!" He joined Scout on the ground as Heavy gave him a good shove.  
"Snow is good!" Heavy roared. "Makes leelte babies tough!"  
Medic glared as he fished his glasses out of the snow.  
The REDs managed to get to their new base without too much trouble. There was a mad rush to claim rooms and Scout had to bite's Spy's hand to score the one next to Sniper's. It was way too cold to sleep in his van so Sniper reluctantly moved his things into his new room. Already he could feel his wolf get excited about the new prey the mountains would no doubt offer. Maybe he could finally get that rabbit he had been craving. Sniper didn't mind the excitement. The seclusion of the mountain and the indigenous wolf species would provide him with some cover. Plus he was a nature boy at heart and a good run through the woods and snow sounded rather nice.  
"Awe," Scout whined behind him. "This one's bigger than mine." He looked around Sniper's room.  
"Aint the only thing I've got that's bigger than yours," Sniper said as he walked by to grab another box. Scout turned bright red and punched Sniper in the shoulder.  
~O~

BLU Medic was busy inspecting his new equipment while Corgineer snarled with teeth sunk into his ankle. Medic was unfazed by the slight pain and ignored the dog. Spion chittered angrily and clamped a claw on Corgineer's back leg. Corgineer whined and turned on Spion, but Spion's shell proved too tough for his teeth.  
"Ach, must you act like an animal?" Medic picked Corgineer up and put him back into his cage. "I'll let you out vhen you learn to behave." Spion chittered at Corgineer and followed his master out the door.

"He is going to create problems," Medic muttered as he began to go through his paperwork. "Vhen vill he learn zhat I saved his life by doing zhis? Did he VANT to die?" Spion chittered and pat Medic's hand. "Zhen zhere is zhat volf," Medic continued. "Did zhe REDs bring it here too? I vill have to keep an eye out. Such a beautiful specimen… it vas not any native species." Spion chittered and Medic pursed his lips. "A pet? I doubt it."  
The door opened and Medic looked up to see Pyro. He was holding something behind his back as he shuffled into the room.  
"Vhat is it?" Medic asked. Pyro mumbled something and then set a Spion plush on Medic's desk. Medic raised his eyebrows as he looked down at the plush. Spion poked it with his claws and chittered happily. Medic didn't know what to say. What was it with people suddenly giving him things? First Heavy with the sandvich and now Pyro with this…  
"Um…danke," he finally managed to say. Pyro mumbled happily and left with a wave.  
"Such a strange man…" Medic said as Spion climbed over the plush.  
~O~  
Pyro was on his way back to his room when a bell rang. Someone was at the front door. With a confused mumble, Pyro headed off to answer it. He opened the door to reveal a tall gangly young man with short brown hair and a matching goatee. He was wearing a BLU Engineer's uniform and had a box of tools with him. He smiled and held a gloved hand out to Pyro.  
"Howdy!" He said. "Name's Freddie! I'm your new Engineer!"


	23. Long Overdue Note

It makes me cringe to see how long it's been since I've done anything with this story. Truth be told, I forgot about it with everything going on.  
HOWEVER...  
I have decided to try and get this train running again. I'm just curious to know if anyone is still interested in this story. If I get enough support I'll continue it.

Thank you all for your patience. I know I've been making you guys wait for a long time.


	24. Charm or Blackmail?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys, please bear with me. It's been years and I'm not sure if my style's still there or not. Still, here's a nice short chapter for you guys. Tell me what you think. Thanks so much for sticking with me, guys.

The BLU Medic… really didn’t know how to feel about Freddie.  
He was loud, he was energetic, he was always smiling about something, but he also seemed to pick up on Medic’s discouragement of interaction and left the older man alone. Granted, Medic had to give him his mandatory physical (Freddie was in great shape), and Freddie had made soft small talk while Medic poked and prodded him.  
“Those are some really nice starlings,” Freddie said as he watched the birds play around in a basin of water. “They yours?”  
Medic was bust watching the needle on the blood pressure cuff and ignored the new Engineer.  
“I’ll take that as a yes. The guys said ya had a thing for animals. The crab’s a little out of place, though. I mean how is he going to keep warm? Least the corgi won’t have to worry, but is it really a good idea to let him gnaw on his cage like that? I mean, he could really hurt-“  
“Shut up.” Medic hadn’t raised his voice, but the tone was commanding enough. Freddie sheepishly scratched the back of his head.  
“Sorry ‘bout that, Doc.” And he was silent until the appointment was over and he left.  
“Ach… vhy do zhey all have to be so damned chatty?” Medic removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Vhy can’t zhey just come in viz zheir mouths sewn shut? Little good talking vill do. Talking alvays gets you into trouble…” He slid his glasses back on, a faraway look in his eyes. “Alvays…”  
BLU Spy, on the other hand, took a great interest in Freddie. The previous Engineer had been a valuable ally, but the threats near the end had made him too much of a liability to keep around. Still, if he wanted a good cage to keep a large wolf, then an Engineer would be just the one to make it. Of course that meant that Spy would either have to get Freddie on his side somehow (either through charm or blackmail), or trick him. Either way would work.  
He knocked on the open door of Freddie’s workshop and opened his mouth to announce his presence, but was cut off by pained cursing and a rather sickening sound.  
“Mother of hell!” Freddie had appeared from behind some machine, holding his bleeding fingers that were hanging on by only a sliver of flesh-  
Spy jerked back in disgust, watching Freddie rush over to a dispenser and turn it on.  
“Whew!” The soothing rays moved over Freddie’s injured hand, and he sighed in relief. “Oh, hey Spy! Just doing some work and got my first on the job injury. Let me tell you, even if a machine looks broken down… there’s a good chance it aint. And then next thing you know you have no fingers on your left hand.”  
This man was insane.  
Spy raised an eyebrow under his balaclava. He had never seen anyone react to an injury like that, and probably never would. He was beginning to think maybe he should get yet another Engineer, but that would be a waste of time. He’d just have to accept Freddie’s mannerisms and hope for the best.  
“Ah… well, a good zhing zhat you ‘ad a dispenser,” he said, slowly walking into the workshop. The previous Engineer had always kept it shut and forbidden anyone to enter it.  
“No kidding,” Freddie grinned as he watched his fingers join back to his hand. “One of these woulda been real useful back on the farm. Ya can only get kicked in the head so many times before things go a little blurry.” He raised his now healed hand and wiggled his fingers. “Boy, that cleans up nice.”  
“Oui,” Spy agreed. “I ‘ave seen zhose ‘eal worse injuries. Very useful in battle. You ‘AVE fought before, non?”  
“Me? Nah,” Freddie chuckled like Spy told a joke. “My ancestors fought in the war, but I was never one for fighting myself. I took this job cuz the pay is just what I need to get my Ma and Pa outta debt. Farm aint doing too good, and the crops aint coming in like they used to. Not to mention we lost a few prize animals to coyotes.”  
“Coyotes?” Spy asked with interest. Coyotes were similar enough to wolves. Maybe he could use this to his advantage. If Freddie harbored a deep enough hatred of them then maybe Spy could twist it and convince him to help capture the RED Sniper.  
“Yeah. Damn things. Been trying to get rid of them kindly, but it don’t seem to work. Build a few things to chase them off or guard the sheep, and then ya come back to twisted metal and bloody fleece,” Freddie turned the dispenser off and went back to the machine he had been working on. “Damn nuisances is all they are, but what can ya do? Part of the trade, as Pa would say.”  
“Oh, well… I know ‘ow you feel,” said Spy. “Coldfront ‘as its own share of wildlife. Les lapins, les oiseaux, zhey can be very beautiful to watch. But zhe wolves? Non, merci. I try to keep my distance.”  
“Wolves?” Freddie didn’t look up from the machine. “Well yeah, these are mountains. Wolves are expected. I just hope the Medic keeps an eye on his pets. Wolves’ll snatch them right up.”  
“Oui,” Spy nodded. “ Zhat lesson was learned the ‘ardway. Zhe Medic still refuses to talk about zhe time a wolf made off wizh ‘is poor cat.”  
“Huh?” Freddie looked up. “Ya serious? Awe, poor kitty. I bet Doc was a mess.”  
“Oh ‘e was,” Spy acted sympathetic. “And zhe beast is still out zhere. Larger zhan life, blacker zhan zhe night. It comes around our base looking for food, and terrorizes anyone unfortunate enough to be stationed ‘ere.”  
“A terror, huh?” Freddie rubbed his chin in thought, smearing grease into his goatee. “Well… maybe I can help ya out there. I mean, I don’t wanna kill nothing, but maybe we can catch it.”  
“Oh Freddie,” Spy’s smile hid the malice and malevolent glee he felt. “I would love nozhing more…”


	25. Soldiers of War

RED Soldier was a man of war.   
He had fought his share of battles, won his share of medals, and killed his share of men. He studied the word of Sun Tzu, could dismantle and assemble his guns while blindfolded, and had mastered the rocket jump. But despite all that... he found himself facing a dilemma he wasn't sure how to solve. For the longest time he had denied the possibility of developing feelings for any of his teammates, let alone someone like the Medic. The man was cold at times, didn't suffer fools gladly, and had a mean streak on the field if you really riled him up.   
At the same time, Soldier had a lot of respect and admiration for the man. He'd seen the tattoo, knew what it meant. Medic had been through hell during the war, and yet he was once again fighting one, and he was doing it well. He was fighting with all his might, scarred by past battles, and yet... he hadn't lost himself like his BLU counterpart had. Soldier still shuddered when he thought of the state he had found Medic in that day.  
What had started as respect morphed into appreciation, morphed into infatuation, morphed into… what exactly? Love? Love was for sissies. Love was for the weak. That was what his father had told him at a young age. Love is for weak men because women are harpies that will rip your heart out and then leave with half your stuff. Don’t fall in love. No woman is worth it. Well, his father had never mentioned whether a man was worth it or not. Still, Soldier wasn’t quite sure just what he was feeling, but he was pretty sure it was stronger than just liking somebody. If it WAS love, then there were certain American customs that he had to do. Like… gifts! Women love gifts, right? So men should too. But what kind of gift could Soldier give the Medic…?   
While RED Soldier was debating on flowers vs. candy, his BLU counterpart was busy looking for RED’s outside their base. While it was heavily enforced that either team stay in their base during ceasefire, years of paranoia made Soldier still patrol for any threats. He didn’t trust those RED bastards for a second. So far his patrol was coming up empty, but that didn’t mean a thing. RED’s could be crafty when they wanted to be.  
He rounded a corner and looked around. Still nothing. Aside from the RED’s, he was getting iffy about his own team. The events at the last base showed signs of a traitor in their midst. The former Engineer’s termination may have given the others reason to sigh in relief, but not Soldier. Engineer was talented, but he couldn’t have done everything himself. He’d had to have had a partner, and Soldier was going to figure out who.   
A sudden noise made Soldier tense and raise his weapon. He’d gone with the trusty shovel this time, preferring a nice slow death for any RED bastard. He peeked around the corner to see someone digging through their scrap pile. Those RED’s were trying to steal supplies? Not on his watch!  
He leapt from his hiding place onto the thief, shovel swinging through the air and aiming for the head-  
Only to have it deflected by a massive Russian hand. Soldier growled as the BLU Heavy and BLU Pyro stared at him in confusion.  
“Leetel Soldier?” Heavy asked. “What is leetel man doing out here?”  
“Patrolling,” Soldier gruffed. “What about you sissies?”  
“Pyro wants to make thing for Doktor,” said Heavy. “I help.” Pyro nodded and mumbled.  
“Whatever you’re making can’t be important enough to use our supplies,” said Soldier. “Put it all back and go inside, Commies. This area is off limits.”  
“Soldier is not leader,” said Heavy. “Cannot tell what to do. We make thing for Doktor. We need metal. We take it now.” Soldier looked ready to argue again, but Heavy glared and towered over the American. Soldier grumbled as he kicked a nearby sheet of metal and stomped off.  
“Do not worry, friend,” Heavy said as he sorted through the metal. “We will make thing and Doktor will love it.” Pyro nodded eagerly and clapped.


End file.
